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GATHERED GEMS. 

A Ifew B(H>7c, Comprising a Series of 

Thirty of the Best Sermons 

EVER DELIVERED BY 

REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D., 

Who without any question, the, most popular 
preacher of the eenttiry. 

THIS BOOK ALSO CONTAINS — • 



Complete Life of this Famous Preacher. 

ALSO 20 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 

It contains Thirteen Sermons on tLc Wedding Eing. 

Twelve Sermons on Woman ; Her Power and Privileges. 
Six Sermons entitled the Battle for Bread. 

On the Belations of Lalsor and Capital. 

Tn addition to the thirty-one sermons described above, the book also con- 
tains the complete Life of Rev. T. De Witt Talmagre, D D . with a history of the 
Brooklyn Tabernacle. Edited by John Lobb, F.R.G S. This history of his life 
is alone worth much more than tiie price of the book, and contains facts in 
reference to his early struggles and experiences which have never before 
appeared in print in this country. 

Among the hundreds of thousands of people who have read the utterances 
of this w^onderfully successful man there are none but will be glad to have this 
book. 

It contains 725 pages, and is sold at the following remarkably low 
prices, in order that every family may be provided with a copy of it. 

J^ound handsome Silh Cloth, with Inh and Gold Stamp ^ $l.Ii<> ; 
bound in Half Mussia, Marbled JEdges, S^i.OOo 

Sent b> mail, post-paid, to any address on receipt of price. 

AOHN;^® 'WA]WrKO in every town to sell this book, 50 per cent 
discount to live men and women. 

To any person who mentions where they saw this advertisement 1 will send 
a Prospectus Book, with full particulars, and a copy of the book, bound in 
cloth, for $1.50, provided you state that you wish to act as agent, and state 
what territory you can use to advantage. Address all orders and applications 
for an agency to 

J. S. OGILVIB, Publisher, 

P. O. Box 27tt7. 57 Rose St., New York. 



TWENTY-FWE 

ON 

THE HOLY 



BY 

REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D., 

Pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle. 



(COPYRIQHT 1890, BY J. S. OgILVIE.) 




THESUNNY8IDE SERIES, N». 15. Issued Monthly. January, 1S91. $2.(50 per year. Entered at 
N. T. Post-9ft«« »• •ee9Bii'Cla«s ^laattar. Publiskeil by arramg^eiatBt witk X. Y. Weekly Witness. 



SERMONS 

LAND. 



NBW YORK : 

J. B. OGILVIE, Publisher, 
ST Rose Street 



)r coko*em\| 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 029078 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

ON 

THE HOLY LAND. 



THE EVE OF DEPARTURE. 

And they accompanied him unto the ship." — Actsxx., 38. 

To the more than twenty-five million people in many 
countries to whom my sermons come week by week, in 
English toDg-Lie and by translation, through the kind- 
ness of the press, I address these words. I dictate 
them to a stenographer on the eve of my departure 
for the Holy Land^ Palestine. "When you read this 
sermon I will be in mid- Atlantic. I go to be gone a 
few weeks on a religious journey. I go because I want 
for myself and hearers and readers to see Bethlehem, 
and Nazareth, and Jerusalem, and Calvary, and all 
the other places connected Avith the Saviour's life and 
death, and so re-enforce myself for sermons. I go 
also because I am writing the "''Life of Christ,'" and 
can be more accurate and graphic when I have been an 
eye-witness of the sacred places. Pray for my suc- 
cessful journe^^ and my safe return. 

I wish on the eve of departure to pronounce a loving 
benediction upon lall my friends in high places and low, 
upon congregations to whom my sermoiis are read iii 



S SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

absence of pastors, upon gToups gathered out on prr 
ries, and in mining districts, upon all sick and invaL 
and aged ones who cannot attend churches, but to whom. 
I have long administered through the printed page. 
My next sermon will be addressed to you from Rome, 
Italy, for I feel like Paul when he said : ''So, as much 
as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you 
that are at Rome also." The fact is that Paul was 
ever moving about on land or sea. He was an old 
sailor — not from occupation, but from frequency of 
travel. I think he could have taken a vessel across 
the Mediterranean as well as some of the ship captains. 
The sailors never scoffed at him for being a " land 
lubber." If Paul's advice had been taken, the crew 
would never have gone ashore at Melita. 

PAUL ON THE OCEAN. 

When the vessel went scudding under bare poles 
Paul was the only self-possessed man on board, and, 
turning to the excited crew and despairing passengers, 
he exclaims, in a voice that sounds above the thunder 
of the tempest and the wrath of the sea : Be of 
good cheer." 

The men who now go to sea with maps, and charts, 
and modern compass, w^arned by buoy and lighthouse, 
know nothing of the perils of ancient navigation. 
Horace said that the man who first ventured on the 
sea must have had a heart bound with oak and triple 
brass. People then ventured onlf from headland to 
headland, and from island to island, and not until long 
after spread their sail for a voyage across the sea. Be- 
fore starting, the weather was watched, and the vessel 
having been hauled up on the shore, the mariners 
placed their shoulders against the stern of the ship and 
heaved it off— they, at the last moment, leaping into it. 



THE EVE OF DEPARTURE. 



9 



Vessels were then chiefly ships of burden — the tran- 
sit of passengers being the exception ; for the world 
^as not then migratory, as in our day, when the first 
desire of a man in one place seems to be to get into 
another place. The ship from which Jonah was 
thrown overboard, and that in which Paul was carried 
prisoner, went out chiefly with the idea of taking a 
cargo. As now, so then, vessels w^ere accustomed to 
carry a flag\ In those times it was inscribed with the 
name of a heathen deity. A vessel bound for Syra- 
cuse had on it the inscription, ^* Castor and Pollux." 
The ships were provided with anchors. Anchors were 
of two kinds — those that were dropped into the sea, 
and those that were throv/n up on to the rocks to hold . 
the vessel fast. This last kind was what Paul alluded 
to when he said : " "Which hope we have as an anchor 
of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enter- 
eth into that within the vail.*' That was what the 
sailors call a ^* hook anchor. '' The rocks and sand 
bars, shoals and headlands not being mapped out, 
vessels carried a plumb line. They would drop it and 
find the water fifty fathoms, and drop it again and 
find it forty fathoms, and drop it again and find it 
thirty fathoms, thus discoving their near approach to 
the shore. 

Li the spring, summer and autumn the Mediterra- 
nean Sea was white with the wings of ships, but at the 
first wintry blast they hied themselves to the nearest 
harbor ; although now the world's commerce prospers 
in January as well as in Jtme, and in mid-winter all 
over the wide and storm deep there float palaces of 
light, trampling the billows under foot and showering 
the sparks of terrible furnaces on the wild wind ; and 
the Christian passenger, tippeted and shawled, sits 
under the shelter of the smokestack, looking off upon 



10 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



the phosphorescent deep, on which is written in scrolls 
of foam and fire : " Thy way, O God, is in the sea, and 
thy path in the great waters ! " ^ 

It is in those days of early navigation that I see a 
group of men, women and children on the beach of the 
Mediterranean. Paul is about to leave tl?e congrega- 
tion to whom he had preached, and they are come 
down to see him off. It is a solemn thing to part. 
There are so many traps that wait for a man's feet. 
The solid ground may break through, and the sea — 
how many dark mysteries it hides in its bosom ! A 
few counsels, a hasty good-b}^, a last look, and the 
ropes rattle, and the sails are hoisted, and the planks 
are hauled in, and Paul is gone. I expect to sail over 
some of the same waters over which Paul sailed, but 
before going I want to urge you all to embark for 
heaven. 

The church is the Ary dock where souls are to be 
fitted out for heaven. In making a vessel for this 
voyage, the first need is sound timber. The floor tim- 
bers ought to be of solid stuff. For the want of it, 
vessels that looked able to run their jibboons into the 
eye of any tempest, when caught in a storm have been 
crushed like a wafer. The truths of God's Word are 
what I mean by floor timbers. Away Avith your lighter 
materials. Nothing but oaks hewn in the forest of 
divine truth are stanch enough for this craft. 

STRIKING MARITIME SIMILES. 

You must have love for a helm, to guide and turn 
the craft. Neither pride, nor ambition, nor avarice 
will do for a rudder. Love, not only in the heart, but 
flashing in the eye and tinglmg in the hand — love mar- 
ried to work, which many look upon as so homely a 
bride— lovei not like brooks whicb foam and rattle yet 



THE EVE OF DEPARTURE. 



11 



do nothing*, but love like a river thai runs up the steps ^ 
of mill wheels and works in the harness of factory 
bands — love that will not pass by on the other side, 
but visits the man who fell among- thieves near Jericho, 
not merely saying : Poor fellovv^ ! you are dreadfully 
hurt," but like the good Samaritan, pours in oil and 
wine and pays his board at the tavern. There must 
also be a prow, arranged to cut and override the billow. 
That is Christian perseverance. 

There are three mountain surges that sometimes 
dash against the soul in a minute — the world, the flesh, 
and the devil ; and that is a well-built prow^ that can 
bound over them. For lack of this, man^^ have put 
back and never started again. It is the broadside wave 
that so often sweeps the deck and fills the hatches ; 
but that which strikes in front is harmless. Meet 
troubles courageously^ and you surmount them. Stand 
on the pj^ow, and, as you wipe off the spray of the 
split surge, cry out with the apostle : None of these 
things move me." Let all your fears stay aft. The 
right must conquer. Know that Moses, in an ark of 
bulrushes, can run down a war steamer. 

THE ANCHOR OF HOPE. 

Have a good, strong' anchor. Which hope we have 
as an anchor." By this strong cable and windlass, 
hold on to your anchor. If any man sin, we have 
an advocate with the Father." Do not use the anchor 
wrongfully. Do not always stay in the same latitude 
and longitude. You will never ride up the harbor of 
Eternal Rest if you all the way drag- your anchor. 

But you must have sails. Vessels are not fit for the 
sea until they have the flying jib, the foresail, the top- 
gallant, the skysail, the gaft'sail and other canvas. 
Faith is our canvas. Hoist it and the winds of heaven 



12 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



will drive you ahead. Sails made out of any other can- 
vas than faith will be slit to tatters by the first north- 
easter. Strong' faith never lost a battle. It will crush 
foes, blast rockS;, quench lightnings, thresh mountains. 
It is a shield to the warrior, a crank to the most pon- 
derous wheel, a lever to pry up pyramids, a drum 
whose beat gives strength to the step of the heavenl3^ 
soldiery, and sails to waft ships laden with priceless 
pearls from the harbor of earth to the harbor of 
heaven. 

But you are not yet equipped. You must have what 
seamen call the running rigging. This comprises the 
ship's braces, halliards, clew lines and such like. 
Without these the j^ards could not be braced, the sails 
lifted nor the canvas in any wise managed. We have 
prayer for the running rigging. Unless you under- 
stand this tackling you are not a spiritual seaman. By 
pulling on these ropes you hoist the sails of faith and 
turn them every whither. The prow of courage will 
not cut the wave, nor the sail of faith spread and 
flap its wing, unless you have strong prayer for a 
halliard. 

One more arrangement and you will be ready for the 
sea. You must have a compass — which is the Bible. 
Look at it every day, and always sail by it, as its 
needle points toward the Star of Bethlehem. Through 
fog and darkness and storm it works faithfuU 7. Search 
the Scriptures. Box the compass.'^ 

Let me give you two or three rules for the voyage. 
Allow your appetites and passions only an under 
deck passage. Do not allow them ever to come up on 
the promenade deck. Mortify your members which 
are upon the earth. Never allow your lower nature 
anything better than a steerage passage. Let watch- 
fulness walk the decks as an armed sentinel, and 



THE EVE OF DEPARTURE. 



13 



>lioot down with great promptness anything hke a 
mutin3' of riotous appetites. 

Be sure to look out of the forecastle for icebergs. 
These are cold Christians floating about in the church. 
The frigid zone professors will sink you. Steer clear 
of icebergs. Keep a log book during all the voyage — 
an account of how many furlongs you make a day. 
The merchant keeps a day book as well as a ledger. 
You ought to know everj' night, as well as ever}' year, 
how things are going. When the express train stops 
at the depot you hear a hammer sounding on all the 
wheels, thus testing the safety of the rail-train. Bound, 
as we are, with more than express speed toward a 
great eternity, ought we not often to try the w^ork of 
self-examination ? 

Be sure to keep your colors uj) I You know the 
ships of England, Russia, France and Spain by the 
ensigns they carry. Sometimes it is a lion, sometimes 
an eagle, sometimes a star, sometimes a crown. Let 
it ever be known who you are, and for what port you 
are bound. Let "'Christian" be written on the very 
front, with a figure of a cross, a crown and a dove ; 
and from the masthead let float the streamers of Im- 
manuel. Then the pirate vessels of temptation will 
pass you unharmed as they say : There goes a 
Christian bound for the port of heaven. "We will not 
disturb her, for she has too many guns aboard." Run 
up your flag on this pulley: I am not ashamed of 
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and 
the wisdom of God unto salvation.'' When driven 
back or laboring under great stress of weather — now 
changing from starboard tack to larboard, and then 
from larboard to starboard — look above the topgal- 
lants, and 3'our heart shall beat like a war drum as the 
streamers float on the wind. The sign of the cross 



14 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



will make you patient, and the crown will make you 
glad. 

THE VOYAGE TO ETERNITY. 

Before you gain port you will smell the land breezes 
of heaven ; and Christ, the Pilot, will meet you as 
you come into the Narrows of Death, and fasten to 
you, and say: ''When thou passest through the 
waters, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, 
they shall not overflow thee." Are you ready for such 
a voyage ? Make up your minds. The gangplanks are 
lifting. The bell rings. All aboard for heaven ! This 
world is not j^our rest. The chaffinch is the silliest 
bird in all the earth for trying to make its nest on the 
rocking billow. Oh, how I wish that as I embark for 
the Holy Land in the East, all to whom I preach by 
tongue or type would embark for heaven. What you 
all most need is God, and you need him now. Some 
of you I leave in trouble. Things are going very rough 
with you. You have had a hard struggle with pov- 
erty, or sickness, or persecution, or bereavement. Light 
after light has gone out and it is so dark that you 
can hardly see any blessing left. May that Jesus who 
comforted the widow of Nain, and raised the deceased 
to life, with his gentle hand of sympathy wipe away 
3^our tears. All is well. 

When David was fleeing through the wilderness, 
pursued by his own son, he was being prepared to be- 
come the sweet singer of Israel. The pit and the dun- 
geon were the best schools at which Joseph ever 
graduated. The hurricane that upset the tent and 
killed Job's children prepared the man of Uz to write 
the magnificent poem that has astounded the ages. 
There is no way to get the wheat out of the straw but 
to thresh it. There is no way to purify the gold but 
to burn it. Look at the people who have always had 



THE EVE OF DEPARTtFRE. 



15 



it their own way. They are proud, discontented, use- 
less and unhapp3\ If 3^ou want to find cheerful folks, 
g-o among' those who have been purified b^^ the fire. 
After Rossini had rendered '•'William Tell" the five 
hundredth time, a companj' of musicians came under 
his window in Paris and serenaded him. They put 
upon his brow a g'olden crown of laurel leaves. But 
amidst all the applause and enthusiasm Rossini turned 
to a friend and said : ''I would g"ive all this brilliant 
scene for a few daj's of youth and love." Contrast 
the melancholy feeling of Rossini, who had everj^thing 
that this world could g-ive him, to the jo^^ful experience 
of Isaac Watts, whose misfortunes were innumerable, 
when he says : 

The hill of Zion yields 

A thousand sacred sweets, 
Before we reach the heavenly fields 

Or wsilk the golden streets. 

Then let our songs abound, 

And every tear be dry ; 
We're marching through Immanuel's ground. 

To faierr worlds on high. 

It is prosperity that kiUs and trouble that saves. 

While the Israelites were on the march, amidst great 
privations and hardships, they behaved well. After 
awhile, thej^ prayed for meat, and the sky darkened 
with a large flock of quails, and these quails fell in 
great multitudes all about them ; and the Israelites 
ate and ate, and stuffed themseh^es until thej^ died. Oh! 
my friends, it is not hardship, or trial, or starvation 
that injures the soul, but abundant supply. It is not 
the vulture of trouble that eats up the Christian's life ; 
it is the quails ! it is the quails I 

I cannot leave 3^ou until once more I confess my faith 



16 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



in the Saviour whom I have preached. He is my all 
in all. I owe more to the g-race of God than most men. 
With this ardent tempera;ment, if I had gone over- 
board I would have gone to the very depths. You 
know I can do nothing b^^ halves. 

O to grace how great a debtor 
Daily I'm constrained to be ! 

I think all will be well. Do not be worried about me. 
* I know that my Redeemer liveth, and if any fatality 
should befall me, I think I should go straight. I have 
been most unworthy, and would be sorr3^ to think that 
any one of my friends had been as unworthy a Chris- 
tian as raj^self. But God has helped a great many 
through, and I hope he will help me through. It is a 
long account of shortcomings, but if he is going to rub 
an3^ of it out, he will rub it all out. 

And now give us (for I go not alone) your benedic- 
tion. When 3^ou send letters to a friend in a distant 
land, you say via such a city, or via such a steamer. 
"When you send your good wishes to us, send them via 
the throne of God. We shall not travel out of the 
reach of your prayers. 

There is a scene where spirits dwell, 
Where friend holds intercourse with friend ; 
Though sundered far, by faith we meet 
Around one common mercy seat. 

And now, may the blessing of God come down upon 
your bodies and upon your souls, your fathers and 
mothers, your comi)anions, your children, your broth- 
ers and sisters, and your friends I May you be blessed 
in your business and in your pleasures, in your joys 
and in your sorrows, in the house and by the way! 

And if, during our separation, an arrow from the 
unseen world should strike any of us, ma3^ it onlj^ has- 



THE EVE OF DEPARTURE. 



IT 



ten on the raptures that God has prepared for those 
who love him I I utter not the word farewell : it is too 
sad, too formal a word for me to speak or Avrite. But, 
considering that I have your hand tig-htiy clasped in 
both of mine, I utter a kind, an affectionate and a 
cheerful o-ood-by I 



"I MUST ALSO SEE ROME." 



must also see Kome." — Acts xix., 21. 



Here is Paul's itinerar3^ He was a traveling or cir- 
cuit preacher. He had been mobbed and insulted, and 
the more good he did the worse the world treated him. 
But he went right on. Now he proposes to go to Jeru- 
salem, and says : After that I must also see Rome.'' 
Why did he want to visit this wonderful city in which 
I am to-day permitted to stand ? To preach the 
Gospel," you answer. No doubt of it, but there were 
other reasons why he wanted to see Rome. A man of 
Paul's intelligence and classic taste had fifty other 
reasons for wanting to see it. Your Colosseum was 
at that time in process of erection, and he wanted to 
see it. The Forum was even then an old structure, 
and the eloquent apostle wanted to see that building, 
in which eloquence had so often thundered and wept. 
Over the Appian Way the triumphal processions had 
already marched for hundreds of years, and he wanted 
to see that. The temple of Saturn was already an an- 
tiquity, and he wanted to see that. The architecture 
of the world-renowned city— he wanted to see that. 
The places associated with the triumphs, the cruelties, 
the disasters, the wars, the military genius, the poetic 
and the rhetorical fame of this great cit^^ — he wanted to 
see them. A man like Paul , so many-sided, so sympa- 
thetic, so emotional, so full of analogy, could not have 
been indifferent to the antiquities and the splendors 
which move every rightly organized human being\ 



'^I MUST ALSO SEE ROME." 



19 



And with what thrill of interest he walked these 
streets, those only who for the first time like ourselves 
enter Rome can imagine. If the inhabitants of all 
Christendom were gathered into one plain, and it were 
put to them which two cities they would above all 
others wish to see, the vast majoritj^ of them would 
vote Jerusalem and Rome. So we can understand 
something- of the record of my text and its surround- 1 
ings when it says, Paul purposed in the spirit when he 
had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to 
Jerusalem, saying: '-After that I must also see 
Rome.'' 

As some of you. are aw^are, with my familj^, and only 
for the purpose of what we can learn and the good we 
can get, I am on the waj^ to Palestine. Since leaving 
Brooklyn, New York, this is the first place we have 
stopped. Intermediate cities are attractive, but we 
have visited them in other years, and we hastened on, 
for I said before starting that w^hile I was going to 
Jerusalem I must also see Rome. Why do I want to 
see it ? Because I want, hy visiting regions associated 
with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, to have my faith 
in Christianity confirmed. There are those who will 
go through large expenditure to have their faith weak- 
ened. In m}^ native land I have knowii|^persons of 
ver^' limited means to pay fity cents or a dmlar to hear 
a lecturer prove that our Christian religion is a myth, a 
dream, a cheat, a lie. On the contrary, I will give all 
the thousands of dollars that this journey of my famih^ 
will cost to have additional evidence that our Chris- 
tian religion is an authenticated grandeur, a solemn, a 
joyous, a rapturous, a stupendous, a magnificent fact. 
So I want to see Rome. I want you to show me the 
places connected with apostolic mmistr3\ I have heard 
that m your cit^^ and amid its surroundings, apostles 



2§ SEEMONS ON THE HOLY LANB. 

suffered and died for Christ's sake. My common sense 
tells me that people do not die for the sake of a false- 
hood. They may practice deception for puijposes of gain ^ 
but put the sword to their heart, or arrange the halter 
around their neck, or kindle the fire around their feet, 
and they would say: My life is worth more than anj- 
thing I can gain by losing it. " I hear you have in this 
city Paul's dungeon. Show it to me. I must see 
Rome also. While I am interested in this city because 
of her rulers or her citizens who are mighty in history 
for virtue or vice or talents— Romulus, and Caligula, 
and Cincinnatus, and Vespasian, and Coriolanus, and 
Brutus, and a hundred others whose names are bright 
with an exceeding brightness, or black with the deep- 
est dye — most of all am I interested in this city 
because the preacher of Mars Hill, and the defier of 
Agrippa, and the hero of tlie shipwrecked vessel in 
the breakers of Melita, and the man who held higher 
than any one that the world ever saw the torch of 
Resurrection, lived, and preached, and was massacred 
here. Shovv me ever3^ place connected with his mem- 
ory. I must also see Rome ! 

CURIOSITY OP THE CHRISTIAN. 

But my Jjpxt suggests that in Paul there was the 
inquisitive and curious spirit. Had my text only meant 
that he wanted to preach here he would have said so. 
Indeed, in another place, he declared: ^^I am ready 
to preach the Gospel to you who are at Rome also." 
But my text suggests a sight seeing. This man who 
had been under Dr. Gamaliel had no lack of phraseol- 
ogy, and was used to saying exactly what he meant, 
and he said : I must also see Rome." There is such 
a thing as Christian curiosity. Paul had it, and some 
of us have it. About other people's business I have no 



^^I MUST ALSO SEE ROME. 



21 



curiosity. About all that can confirm my faith in the 
Christian religion and the world's salvation and the 
soul's future happiness, I am full of an all-absorbings 
all-compelling curiosity. Paul had a great curiosity 
about the next world, and so have we. I hope some 
day, hy the grace of God, to go over and see for my- 
self, but not now. No well man, no prospered man, I 
think, wants to go now. But the time will come, I 
think, when I shall go over. I want to see what they 
do there, and I want to see how^ thev do it. I do not 
want to be looking through the gates apir forever. I 
want them to swing wide open. There are ten thou- 
sand things I want explained— about you, about my- 
self, about the government of the world, about God, 
about everj^thing. We start in a plain path of what 
we know, and in a minute come up against a high wall 
of what we do not know. I wonder how it looks over 
there. Somebodj^ tells me it is like a paved city — 
paved with gold ; and another man tells me it is like 
a fountain, and it is like a tree, and it is like a trium- 
phal procession ; and the next man I meet tells me it 
is all figurative. I reallj^ want to know after the 
body is resurrected what they wear and what they eat ; 
and I have an immeasurable curiositj^ to know what 
it is, and how it is, and where it is. Columbus risked 
his life to find the American continent, and shall we 
shudder to go out on a voyage of discovery which 
shall reveal a vaster and more brilliant country? 
John Franklin risked his life to find a passage between 
icebergs, and shall we dread to find a passage to 
eternal summer? Men in Switzerland travel up the 
heights of the Matterhorn with an alpenstock, and 
guides, and rockets, and ropes, and, getting half way 
up, stumble and fall down in a horrible massacre. 
They just wanted to sa^^ they had been on the tops of 



^2 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



those high peaks. And shall we fear to go out for 
the ascent of the eternal hills which start a thousand 
miles beyond where stop the highest peaks of the 
Alps, and w^hen in that ascent there is no peril. A 
man doomed to die stepped on the scaffold and said in 
joy: ^^Now, in ten minutes I will know the great 
secret," One minute after the vital functions ceased, 
the little child that died last night knew more than. 
Paul himself before he died. 

Friends, the exit from this world, or death, if you 
please to call it, to the Christian is glorious explana- 
tion. It is demonstration. It is illumination. It is 
sunburst. It is the opening of all the windows. It is 
shutting up the catechism of doubt, and the unrolling 
of all the scrolls of positive and accurate information. 
Instead of standing at the foot of the ladder and look- 
ing up, it is standing at the top of the ladder and 
looking down. It is the last mysterj^ taken out of 
botany, and geology, and astronomy, and theology. 
Oh, will it not be grand to have all questions answered ? 
The perpetually recurring interrogation point changed 
for the mark of exclamation. All riddles solved. Who 
Will fear to go out on that discovery, when all the 
questions are to be decided which we have been dis- 
cussing all our lives ? Who shall not clap his hands 
in the anticipation of that blessed country, if it be no 
better than through holy curiosity ? As this Paul of 
my text did not suppress his curiosity, we need not 
suppress ours. Yes, I have an unlimited curiosity 
about all religious things, and as this city of Rome 
was so intimately connected with apostolic times, the 
incidents of which emphasize and explain and augment 
the Christian religion, you will not take it as an evi- 
dence of a prying spirit, but as the outbursting of a 
Christian curiositj^, w^hen I say, I must also see Rome ! 



'^I MUST ALSO SEE ROME. 



23 



CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITIES OF ROME. 

Our desire to visit this city is also intensified by the 
fact that we want to be confirmed in the feeUng- that 
human life is brief, but its work lasts for centuries, 
indeed, forever. Therefore show us the antiquities of 
old Rome, about which we have been reading for a 
lifetime, but never seen'. In our beloved America we 
have no antiquities. A church eighty years old over- 
awes us with its age. We have in America some 
cathedrals hundreds and thousands of years old, but 
they are in Yellowstone Park, or Californian canon, 
and their architecture and masonry were by the om- 
nipotent God. We want to see the buildings, or ruins 
of old buildings, that were erected hundreds and thou- 
sands of years ago by human hands. They lived fortj^ 
or seventy years, but the arches thej^ lifted, the paint- 
ings thej^ penciled, the sculpture they chiseled, the 
roads they laid out, I understand are yet to be seen, 
and we want you to show them to us. I can hardly 
wait until Monday morning. I must also see Rome ! 
We want to be impressed with the fact that what men 
do on a small scale or large scale lasts a thousand 
years ; lasts forever ; that we build for eternit^' , and 
that we do so in a veiy short space of time ! God is 
the only old living- presence. But it is an old age 
without any of the infirmities or limitations of old age. 
There is a passage of Scripture which speaks of the 
birth of the mountains, for there was a time when the 
Andes were born, and the P^^renees were born, and the 
Sierra Nevada were born, but before the birth of those 
mountains, the Bible tells us, God was born, aye, was 
never born at all, because He always existed. Psalm 
xc, 2: ^'Before the mountains were brought forth, or 
ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even 



'24: SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

from everlasting- to everlasting-;, thou art God." Hoav 
short is human life ; what antiquity attaches to its 
worth ! How everlasting- is God ! Show us the anti- 
quities, the things that were old when America was 
discovered, old when Paul went up and down these 
streets sight-seeing-, old when Christ was born. I 
must — I 7mtst also see Rome I 

THE PAULINE INTELLECT. 

Another reason for our visit to this city is that we 
want to see the places where the mig-htiest intellects 
and the g-reatest natures wroug-ht for our Christian 
religion. We have been told in America by some peo- 
ple of sw^oUen heads that the Christian religion is a 
pusillanimous thing, good for children under seven 
years of age and small-brained people, but not for the 
intelligent and swarthy minded. We have heard of 
3^our Constantino, the mighty, who pointed his army 
to the cross, saying, By this conquer." If there be 
anything here connected with his reign, or his mili- 
tary history, show it to us. The mightiest intellect 
of the ages was the author of my text, and if for the 
Christian religion he was willing to labor and suffer 
and die, there must be something exalted and sublime 
and tremendous in it ; and show me every place he 
visited, and show me, if you can, where he was tried, 
and which of your roads leads out to Ostia, that I ma3^ 
see where he went out to die. We expect before 
we finish this journe^^ to see Lake Galilee and the 
places where Simon Peter and Andrew fished, and 
perhaps we may drop a net or a hook and line into 
those waters ourselves, but when following the track 
of those lesser apostles I will learn quite another les- 
son. I want while in this city of Rome to study the 



^^I MUST ALSO SEE ROME. 



25 



religion of the brainiest apostles. I want to follow, 
as far as we can trace it, the track of this g-reat in- 
tellect of my text who wanted to see Rome also. He 
was a logician, he was a metaph^^sician, he was an all 
conquering- orator, he was a poet of the hig-hest type. 
He had a nature that could swamp the leading* men of 
]iis own day, and, hurled against the Sanhedrim, he 
made it tremble. He learned all he could g-et in the 
school of his native villag-e ; then he had g-one to a 
higher school, and there he had mastered the Greek 
and the Hebrew and perfected himself in belles lettres, 
until, in after years, he astounded the Cretans, and 
the Corinthians, and the Athenians, by quotations 
from their own authors. I have never found anything- 
in Carlyle, or Goethe, or Herbert Spencer that could 
compare in streng-th or beauty with Paul's epistles. I 
do not think there is anj^thing- in the writing's of Sir 
William Hamilton that shows such mental discipline 
as you find in Paul's argument about justification and 
resurrection. I have not found anything in Milton 
finer in the way of imagination than I can find in Paul's 
illustrations drawn from the amphitheater. There 
was nothing in Robert Emmet pleading for his life, or 
in Edmund Burke arraigning Warren Hastings in 
Westminster hall, that compared with the scene in 
the court room, when, before robed officials, Paul 
bowed and began his speech, saying : I think my- 
self happ3% King Agrippa, because I shall answer for| 
myself this day." I repeat, that a religion that can 
capture a man like that must have some power in it. 
It is time our wiseacres stopped talking as though all 
the brain of the world were opposed to Christianity. 
Where Paul leads, we can afford to follow. I am glad 
to know that Christ has, in the different ages of the 
world, had in his discipleship a Mozart and Handel in 



26 * SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

music; a Raphael and a Reynolds in painting; an 
Ang-elo and a Canova in sculpture; a Rush and a 
Harvey in medicine ; a Grotius and a Washington in 
statesmanship ; a Blackstone, a Marshall and a Kent 
in the law. And the time will come when the religion 
of Christ will conquer all the observatories and uni- 
versities, and philosophy will, through her telescope, 
behold the morning star of Jesus, and in her labora- 
tory see that " all things work together for good/' and 
with her geological hammer discern the Rock of 
Ages." Oh, instead of cowering and shivering when 
the skeptic stands before us and talks of religion as 
though it were a pusillanimous thing — instead of that, 
let us take out our New Testament and read the story 
of Paul at Rome, or come and see this city for our- 
selves, and learn that it could have been no weak Gos- 
pel that actuated such a man, but that it is an all-con- 
quering Gospel. A^^e ! for all ages the power of God 
and the wisdom of God unto salvation. 

CONCLUDING EXHORTATION. 

Men, brethren, and fathers ! I thank you for this 
opportunity of preaching the Gospel to jom that are at 
Rome also. The churches of America salute you. 
Upon you who are like us, strangers in Rome, I pra^^ 
the protecting and journeying care of God. Upon 
you who are resident here, I pray grace, mercy and 
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 
After tarrying here a few days we resume our journey 
for Palestine, and we shall never meet again either 
in Italy or America, or what is called the Holj^ Land ; 
but there is a Holier Land, and there we may meet, 
saved by the grace that in the same way saves Italian 
and American; and there is that supernatural clime, 



' I MUST ALSO SEE ROME/ 



27 



after embracing' Him who, by His sufferings on the 
hill back of Jerusalem, made our heaven possible, and 
given salutation to our own kindred whose departure 
broke our hea:^s on earth, we shall, I think, seek out 
the traveling' preacher and mighty hero of the text, 
who marked out his journey through Macedonia and 
Achaia to Jerusalem, saying : After I have been 
there, I must also see Rome." 



A MEDITERRANEAN. VOYAGE. 



''And SO it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land."— 
Acts xxvii., 44. 



Having- visited your historical city (Brindisi)^ which 
we desired to see because it was the terminus of the 
most famous road of the ages — the Roman Appian 
Way — and for its mighty fortress overshadowing a 
city which even Hannibal's hosts could not thunder 
down, we must to-morrow morning leave your harbor, 
and, after touching- at Athens and Corinth, voyage 
about the Mediterranean to Alexandria, Eg3'pt. I 
have been reading this morning in my New Testament 
of a Mediterranean voyage in an Alexandrian ship. It 
was this very month of November. The vessel was 
lying in a port not very far from here. On board that 
vessel were two distinguished passengers — one Jose- 
phus, the historian, as we have strong reasons to be- 
lieve ; the other a convict, one Paul by name, who 
was going to prison for upsetting things, or, as they 
termed it, ^Hurning the world upside down.'" This 
convict had g-ained the confidence of the captain ; in- 
deed, I think that Paul knew almost as much about 
the sea as did the captain. He had been shipwrecked 
three times already ; he had dwelt much of his life 
amidst capstans, and yard-arms, and cables, and 
storms ; and he knew what he was talking about. 
Seeing the equinoctial storm w^as coming, and per- 
haps noticing something unseaworthy in the vessel, 
he advised the captain to stay in the harbor. But I 



A MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. 



29 



hear the captain and the first mate talking* tog^ether. 
They say : We cannot afford to take the advice of 
this landsman, and he a minister. He may be able to 
preach ver^^ well, but I don't believe he knows a mai - 
line-spike from a luff-tackle. All aboard ! Cast off I 
Shift the helm for headway I Who fears the Mediter- 
ranean ? " They had g-one only a little way out when 
a whirlwind, called Euroclydon, made the torn sail its 
turban, shook the mast as you would brandish a 
spear, and tossed the hulk into the heavens. Ovei - 
board with the carg-o ! It is all washed with salt 
water, and worthless now ; and there are no marine 
insurance companies. All hands ahoy, and out with 
the anchors ! 

A GREAT SEA STORM. 

Great consternation comes on crew and passeng-ers. 
The sea monsters snort in the foam and the billows 
clap their hands in giee of destruction. In the lull of 
the storm I hear a chain clank. It is the chain of the 
gTeat apostle as he walks the deck, or holds fast to 
the rig'ging" amid the lurching of the ship, the spray 
dripping- from his long- beard as he cries out to the 
crew : Now I exhort you to be of g-ood cheer : for 
there shall be no loss of any man's life among- you, 
but of the ship. For there stood \yy me this nig-ht the 
angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, 
Fear not, Paul ; thou must be brought before C^sar : 
and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with 
thee." 

Fourteen days have passed, and there is no abate- 
ment of the storm. It is midnight. Standing on the 
lookout, the man peers into the darkness, and, by a 
flash of lightning, sees the long white line of the break- 
ers, and knows they must be coming near to some 



30 SEflMONS ON THU HOLY LAND. 

country, and fears that in a few moments the vessel 
will be shivered on the rocks. The ship flies like chaff 
in the tornado. They drop the sounding* line, and by 
the light of the lantern the^^ see it is twenty fathoms. 
Speeding- along a little farther, they drop the line 
again, and by the light of the lantern they see it is 
fifteen fathoms. Two hundred and seventy-six souls 
Avithin a few feet of awful shipwreck ! The managers 
of the vessel, pretending- they want to look over the 
side of the ship and undergird it, get into the small 
boat, expecting in it to escape ; but Paul sees through 
the sham, and he tells them if they g-o ofl* in the boat 
it will be the death of them. The vessel strikes ! The 
planks spring ! The timbers crack ! The vessel parts 
in the thundering- surge ! Oh, w^hat wild struggling 
for life ! Here they leap from plank to plank. Here 
they go under as if they would never rise, but, catch- 
ing hold of a timber, come floating on it to the beach. 
Here, strong- swimmers spread their arms through the 
waves until their chins plow the sand, and they rise 
up and wring out their wet locks on the beach. When 
the roll of the ship is called, two hundred and seventy- 
six people answer to their names. ^^And so," says 
the text, ^^it came to pass, that they escaped all safe 
to land." 

i SOME WHOLESOME LESSONS. 

I learn from this subject : 

First, that those who get us into trouble will not stay 
to help us out. These shipmen got Paul out of Fair 
Havens into the storm ; but as soon as the tempest 
dropped upon them they w^anted to g-o off in the small 
boat, caring nothing for what became of Paul and the 
passengers. Ah me ! human nature is the same in all 
ages. They who g;et us into trouble never stop to help 



A MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. 



31 



US out. They who tempt that young- man into a life of 
dissipation will be the first to laug-h at his imbecilit}^, 
and to drop him out of decent society. Gamblers al- 
ways make fun of the losses of gamblers. They who 
tempt you into the contest with fists, saying : I will 
back you/'' will be the first to run. Look over all the 
predicaments of your life^, and count the names of those 
who have got you into those predicaments, and tell me 
the name of one who ever helped you out. They were 
glad enough to get jou out from Fair Havens, but 
when, with damaged rigging, you tried to get into 
harbor, did they hold for you a plank or throw you a 
rope ? Not one. Satan has got thousands of men into 
trouble, but he never got one out. He led them into 
theft, but he would not hide the goods or bail out the 
defendant. The spider shows the fl^^ the way over the 
gossamer bridge into the cobweb, but it never shows 
the fly the way out of the cobw^eb over the gossamer 
bridge. I think that there were plenty of fast young 
men to help the prodigal spend his money ; but when 
he had wasted his substance in riotous living, they let 
him go to the swine pastures, Avhile they betook them- 
selves to some other new comer. They who took Paul 
out of Fair Havens will be of no help to him when he 
gets into the breakers of Melita. 

I remark again, as a lesson learned from the text, 
that it is dangerous to refuse the counsel of competent 
advisers. Paul told them not to go out with that ship. 
They thought he kneiv nothing' about it. Thej said : 
^^He is only a minister!'' They went and the ship 
was destroyed. There are a great man^^ people who 
now say of ministers : They know nothing about the 
world. They cannot talk to us." Ah, my friends, it 
is not necessary to have the Asiatic cholera before you 
can ^ive it medical treatment in others. It is not 



32 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



necessary to have your arm broken before you can 
know how to spUnter a fracture. And we, who stand 
in the pulpit and in the office of a Christian teacher, 
know that there are certain stjdes of behef and certain 
kinds of behavior that will lead to destruction as cer- 
tainly as Paul knew that if the ship Avent out of Fair 
Havens it would go to destruction. Rejoice, O young 
man, in thy youth ; and let th^^ heart cheer thee in the 
days of thy youth : but know thou, that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment." We may 
not know much, but we know that. 

Young people refuse the advice of parents. They 
say : Father is oversuspicious and mother is getting 
old." But these parents have been on the sea of life. 
They know where the storms sleep, and during their 
voyage have seen a thousand battered hulks marking 
the place where beauty burned and intellect foundered 
and moralitj^ sank. They are old sailors, having an- 
swered many a signal of distress, and endured great 
stress of weather, and gone scudding uuder bare poles, 
and the old folks know what they are talking about. 
Look at that man— in his cheek the glow of infernal 
fires. His eye flashes not as once with thought, but 
with low passion. His brain is a sewer through which 
impurity floats, and his heart the trough in which lust 
wallows and drinks. Men shudder as the leper passes, 
and parents cry Wolf ! Wolf ! " Yet he once said 
the Lord's prayer at his mother's knee, and against that 
iniquitous brow once pressed a pure mother's lip. But 
he refused her counsel. He went Avhere Euroclydons 
have their lair. He foundered on the sea, while all hell 
echoed at the roar of the wreck. Lost Pacifies ! Lost 
Pacifies ! 



A MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. 



33 



THE SAFETY OF CHRISTIANS. 

Another lesson from the subject is that Christians 
are alwa^^s safe. 

There did not seem to be mi^ch chance for Paul get- 
ting out of that shipwreck, did there ? They had not, 
in those days, rockets with which to throw ropes over 
foundering vessels. Their lifeboats were of but little 
worth. And yet, notwithstanding all the danger, my 
text says that Paul escaped safe to land. And so it 
will always be with God's children. They may be 
plunged into darkness and trouble, but by the throne 
of the Eternal God, I assert it, " they shall all escape 
safe to land.'' 

Sometimes there comes a storm of commercial dis- 
aster. The cables break. The masts fall. The car- 
goes are scattered over the sea. Oh! what struggling 
and leaping on kegs, and hogsheads, and corn-bins, and 
store-shelves ! And yet, though they may have it so 
very Jiard in commercial circles, the good, trusting in 
God, all come safe to land. 

Wreckers go out on the ocean's beach, and find the 
shattered hulks of vessels : and on the streets of our 
great cities there is many a wreck. Mainsail slit 
with banker^s pen. Hulks abeam's-end on insurance 
counters. Vast credits sinking, having suddenly 
sprung a leak. Yet all of them who are God's chil- 
dren shall at last, through His goodness and merc}^, 
escape safe to land. The Scandinavian warriors used to 
drink wine out of the skulls of the enemies they had 
slain. Even so will God help us, out of the conquered 
ills and disasters of life, to drmk sweetness and strength 
for our souls. 

You have, m^^ friends, had illustrations in your own 
life of how God delivers his people. I have had illus- 



34 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



trations in my own life of the same truth. I was once 
in what on your Mediterranean you call a Euroclydon, 
but what on the Atlantic we call a cyclone, but the 
same storm. The steamer Greece of the National line 
swung- out into the river Mersey at Liverpool, bound 
for New York. We had on board seven hundred crew 
and passengers. We came together strangers- — Ital- 
ians, Englishmen, Irishmen, Swedes, Norwegians, 
Americans. Two flags floated from the masts — Brit- 
ish and American ensigns. We had a new vessel, or 
one so thoroughly remodeled that the voyage had 
around it all the uncertainties of a trial trip. The great 
steamer felt its way cautiously out into the sea. The 
pilot was discharged, and committing ourselves to the 
care of Him who holdeth the winds in his fist, we were 
fairly started on our voyage of three thousand miles. 
It was rough nearly all the way, the sea with strong 
buffeting disputing our path. But one night at eleven 
o'clock, after the lights had been put out, a cyclone — 
a wind just made to tear ships to pieces— caught us in 
its clutches. It came down so suddenly that we had 
not time to take in the sails or to fasten the hatches. 
You may know that the bottom of the Atlantic is 
strewn with the ghastly work of cyclones. Oh! they 
are cruel winds. They have hot breath as though they 
came up from infernal furnaces. Their merriment is 
the cry of affrighted passengers. Their play is the 
foundering of steamers. And when a ship goes down 
they laugh until both continents hear them. They go 
in circles, or, as I describe them with my hand — rolling 
on! rolling on! with finger of terror writing on the 
white sheet of the wave this sentence of doom : ' ' Let 
all that come within this circle perish! Brigantines, go 
down! Clippers, go down ! Steamships, go down!" And 
tUe ye^sel^ hearing the terrible yofcei crouches in Xkm 



A MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. 



35 



surf, and as the Avaters gurg-le through the hatches and 
portholes it lowers awaj^, thousands of feet down, far- 
ther and farther, until at last it strikes the bottom; and 
all is peace, for they have landed. Helmsman dead at 
the wheel! Engineer, dead amidst the extinguished fur- 
naces! Captain, dead in the gangway ! Passengers, 
dead in the cabin! Buried in the great cemetery of 
dead steamers, beside the City of Boston, the Lexing- 
ton, the President, the Cambria — waiting for the 
archangel's trumpet to split up the decks, and wrench 
open the cabin doors, and unfasten the hatches. 

PERILS NOT TO BE MADE LIGHT OF. 

I thought that I had seen storms on the sea before ; 
but all of them together might have come under one 
wing of that cyclone. Y^e were only eight or nine 
hundred miles from home, and in high expectation of 
soon seeing our friends, for there was no one on board 
so poor as not to have a friend. But it seemed as if we 
were to be disappointed. The most of us expected 
then and there to die. There were none who made light 
of the peril, save two : one was an Englishman, and he 
'was drunk, and the other was an American, and he 
was a fool ! Oh ! what a time it was ! A night to 
make one's hair turn white. We came out of the 
berths and stood in the gangway, and looked into the 
steerage, and sat in the cabin. While seated there we 
heard overhead something like minute guns. It was 
the bursting of the sails. We held on by both hands 
to keep our places. Those who attempted to cross the 
floor came back bruised and gashed. Cups and glasses 
were dashed to fragments. : pieces of the table getting 
loose swung across the saloon. It seemed as if the 
hurricane took that great ship of thousands of tons 



86 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



and stood it on end , and said : Shall I sink it, or let it 
g'O this once ?" And then it came down with such force 
that the billows trampled over it, each mounted of a 
fury. We felt that everj^thing* depended on the pro* 
pelling" screw. If that stopped for an instant, we knew 
the vessel would fall off into the troug-h of the sea and 
sink, and so we prayed that the screw, which three 
times since leaving Liverpool had already stopped, 
might not stop now^ Oh ! how anxiously we listened 
for the regular thump of the machinery, upon which 
our lives seemed to depend. After awhile someone 
said: ^'The screw is stopped." No; its sound had 
only been overpowered hy the uproar of the tempest, 
and we breathed easier again when we heard the regu- 
lar pulsations of the overtasked machinery, going 
thump, thump, thump. At three o'clock in the morn- 
ing the water covered the ship from prow to stern, and 
the skylights gave wdiy ! The deluge rushed in, and 
we felt that one or two more waves like that must 
swamp us forever. As the water rolled back and for- 
ward in the cabins, and dashed against the wall, it 
sprang half wsij up to the ceiling. Rushing through 
the skylights as it came in with such terrific roar, 
there went up from the cabin a shriek of horror wiiich 
I pray God I ma3^ never hear again. I have dreamed 
the whole scene over again, but God has mercifullj" kept 
me from hearing that one cry. Into it seemed to be 
compressed the agony of expected shipwreck. It 
seemed to say : I shall never get home again ! My 
children shall be orphaned, and my wife shall be 
widowed ! I am launching now" into eternitj^ ! In two 
minutes I shall meet my God ! " 

There were about five hundred and fifty passengers 
in the steerage ; and as the water rushed in and touched 
the furnaces, and began violently to hiss, the poor 



A- MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. 



37 



creatui'es in the steerage imagined that the boilers 
were giving way. Tliose passengers writhed in the 
water and in the mud, some praying, some crying, all 
terrified. They made a I'ush for the deck. An officer 
stood on deck, and beat them back with blow after 
blow. It was necessary. They would not have stood 
an instant on the deck. Oh, how they begged to get 
out of the hold of the shij) I One woman, with a child 
in her arms, rushed up and caught hold of one of the 
officers, and cried : Do let me out 1 I will help you I 
Do let me out ! I cannot die here I*" Some got down 
and prayed to the Virgin Mary, sayings : ^*0 blessed 
Mother ! keep us I Have mercy on us I Some stood 
Avith white lips and fixed gaze, silent in their terror. 
Some wrung their hands and cried out: ••'0 God I 
what shall I do? what shall I do? The time came 
when the crew could no longer stay on the deck_, and 
the cry of the officers was: Below I All hands 
below I'' Our brave and sympathetic Captain Andrews 
— whose praise I shall not cease to speak while I live — 
had been swept by the hurricane from his bridge, and 
had escaped very narrowly with his Ufe. The cyclone 
seemed to stand on the deck, waving its v^mg. crynig : 
This ship is mine I I have captured it I Ha I ha I 
I vvull command it I If God will permit, I will sink it 
here and now ! By a thousand shipwrecks. I swear 
the doom of this vessel 1 " There was a lull in the 
storm ; but only that it might gain additional 
fury. Crash I went the lifeboat on one side. 
Crash ! went the lifeboat on the other side. The great 
booms got loose, and, as with the heft of a thunderbolt, 
pounded the deck and beat the mast — the jibboom, 
studdmg sail boom, and square sail boom, with their 
strong arms, beating time to the awful march and 
music of the hurricane. 



38 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Meanwhile the ocean became phosphorescent. The 
whole scene looked like fire. The water dripping from 
the rigging- ; there were ropes of fire, and there were 
masts of fire^ and there was a deck of fire. A ship of 
fire, sailing on a sea of fire, through a night of fire. 
May I never see anything like it again ! 

PRAYERS FROM ALL. 

Everybody prayed. A lad of twelve years of age 
got down and prayed for his mother. " If I should 
give up/' he said, " I do not know what would become 
of mother." There were men who, I think, had not 
prayed for thirty years who then got down on their 
knees. When a man who has neglected God all his 
life feels that he has come to his last time it makes a 
very busy night. All of our sins and shortcomings 
passed through our minds. My own life seemed utterly 
unsatisfactory. I could only say : Here, Lord, take 
me as I am ; I cannot mend matters now. Lord Jesus, 
thou didst die for the chief of sinners. That's me ! It 
seems. Lord, as if my work is done, and poorly done, 
and upon thy infinite mercy I cast myself, and in this 
hour of shipwreck and darkness commit mj^self and 
her whom I hold the hand to thee, O Lord Jesus ! 
praying that it may be a short struggle in the water, 
and that at the same instant we may both arrive in 
glory ! " Oh ! I tell you a man prays straight to the 
mark when he has a cyclone above him, an ocean be- 
neath him, and eternity so close to him that he can 
feel its breath on his cheek. 

Tlie night was long. At last we saw the dawn look- 
ing through the portholes. As in the olden time, in 
the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came walking on 
the sea, from wave cliff to wave cliff, and when he put 



A MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. 



39 



his foot upon a billow^ though it may be tossed up 
vrith might, it goes down. He cried to the winds, 
Hush ! The}^ knew his voice. The waves knew his foot. 
They died away. And in the shining track of his feet 
I read these letters on scrolls of foam and fire, ^^The 
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the 
waters cover the sea.^' The ocean calmed. The path 
of the steamer became more and more mild ; until, on 
the last morning out, the sun threw about us a glory 
such as I never witnessed before. God made a pave- 
ment of mosaic, reaching from horizon to horizon, for 
all the splendors of earth and heaven to Avalk upon — a 
pavement bright enough for the foot of a seraph — 
bright enough for the wheels of the archangel's 
chariot. As a parent embraces a child, ctnd kisses 
awa}^ its grief, so over that sea, that had been writh- 
ing in agon}^ in the tempest, the morning threw its 
arms of beauty and of benediction ; and the lips of 
earth and heaven met. 

As I came on deck — it was very early, and w^e were 
nearing the shore — I saw a few sails against the sky. 
They seemed like the spirits of the night walking the 
billows. I leaned over the taffrail of the vessel, and 
said : Thy way, O God, is in the sea, and thj^ path 
in the great waters. 

It grew lighter. The clouds were hung in purple 
clusters along the sky ; and, as if those purple clusters 
were pressed into red wine and poured out upon the 
sea, ever}" wave turned into crimson. Yonder, fire- 
cleft stood opposite the fire-cleft, and here, a cloud, 
rent and tinged with light, seemed like a palace, with 
flames bursting from the windows. The whole scene 
lighted up, until it seemed as if the angels of God 
were ascending and descending upon stairs of fire, and 
the wave-crests, changed into Jasper, and crystal^ and^ 



40 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAINTD. 



amethyst, as they were flung toward the beach, made 
me think of the crowns of heaven cast before the 
throne of the great Jehovah. I leaned over the taff rail 
again, and said, with more emotion than before, 
''Thy way, O God, is in the sea, and thy path in the 
great waters ! 

So, I thought, will be the going off of the storm and 
night of the Christian's life. The darkness will fold its 
tents and away ! The golden feet of the rising morn 
will come skipping upon the mountains, and all the 
• wrathful billows of the world's woe break into the 
splendor of eternal joy. And so we came into the har- 
bor. The cyclone behind us. Our friends before us. 
God, who is always good, all around us ! And if the 
roll of the crew and the passengers had been called, 
seven hundred souls would have answered to their 
names. And so it came to pass that we all escaped 
safe to land.'' And may God grant that, when all our 
Sabbaths on earth are ended, we may find that, 
through the rich mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, we 
all have weathered the gale ! 

Into the harbor of heaven now we glide, 

Home at last ! 
Softly we drift on the bright silver tide, 

Home at last ! 
Glory to God ! All our dangers are o'er ; 
We stand secm^e on the glorified shore. 
Glory to God ! we will shout evermore. 

Home at last ! 

Home at last I 



PAUL'S MISSION IN ATHENS. 



Eye hath not seen nor ear heard." — I Corinthians ii. , 9. Fof 
now we see tlirongh a glass, dark'y." — I Corintihans xiii., 12, 



Both these sentences were vrritten by the most illustri- 
ous merely human being the world ever saw, one who 
walked these streets, and piTached from yonder j^ile 
of rocks, Mars Hill. Though more cla:rsic associations 
i.re connected with this city than with any city tinder 
the sun. because here Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle^ 
and Demosthenes, and Pericles, and Heroditus, and 
Pythagoras, and Xenoplion, and Praxiteles wrote or 
chiseled, or taught or thundered or sung, yet in my 
mind all those men and their teachings were eclipsed 
by Paul aud the Gospel he preached in this city and 
in your nearby city of Corinth. Yesterday, standing 
on the old fortress at Corinth, the Acro-Corinthus. 
out from the rtiins at its base arose in my imagination 
the old city, just as Paul saw it. I have been told 
that for splendor the world beholds no such wonder to- 
day as that ancient Corinth, standing on an isthmus 
vrashed by two seas, the one sea bringing the com- 
merce of Europe, the other sea bringing the commerce 
of Asia. From Iter wharves, in the construction of 
which whole kingdoms had been absorbed, war galleys 
with three banks of oars pushed out and confounded 
ihe navy yards of all the world. Huge-handed ma- 
chinery, such as modern invention cannot equal, lifted 
ships from the sea on one side and transpoi^ted tliera 



42 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

on trucks across the isthmus and sat them down in 
the sea on the other side. The revenue officers of the 
city went down through the olive groves that lined the 
beach to collect a* tariff from all nations. The mirth 
of all people sported in her Isthmian games^ and the 
beauty of all lands sat in her theaters, walked her por- 
ticoes and threw itself on the altar of her stupendous 
dissipations. Column, and statue, and temple bewil- 
dered the beholder. There were white marble foun- 
tains, into which, from apertures at the side, there 
gushed waters everywhere known for health-giving 
qualities. Around these basins, twisted into wreaths 
of stone, there were all the beauties of sculpture and 
architecture ; while standing, as if to guard the costly 
display, was a statute of Hercules of burnished Corin- 
thian brass. Vases of terra cotta adorned the ceme- 
teries of the dead — vases so costly that Julius Caesar 
was not satisfied until he had captured them for Rome. 
Armed officials, the corintharii, paced up and down 
to see that no statute was defaced, no pedestal over- 
thrown, no bas-relief touched. From the edge of 
the city the hill held its magnificent burden of col- 
umns and towers and temples (1,000 slaves await- 
ing at one shrine), and a citadel so thoroughly impreg- 
nable that Gibraltar is a heap of sand compared with 
it. Amid all that strength and magnificence Corinth 
stood and defied the world. 

PAUL ADDRESSED HIGH INTELLIGENCE. 

Oh ! it was not to rustics who had never seen any- 
thing grand that Paul uttered one of my texts. They 
had heard the best music that had come from the best 
instruments in all the world ; had heard songs float- 
ing from, morning porticoes and melting in evening 



VAUL'S mission in ATHENS. 



43 



groves ; they liad passed their whole lives among" pict- 
ures and sculpture and architecture and Corinthian 
brass^ which had been molded and shaped until there 
was no chariot wheel in which it had not sped, and no 
tower in which it had not glittered, and no gateway 
that it had not adorned. Ah, it was a bold thing for 
Paul to stand there amid all that and say : " All this 
is nothing. These sounds that come from the temple 
♦ of Neptune are not music compared with the harmonies 
of which I speak. These waters rushing in the basin 
of Pyrene are not pure. These statues of Bacchus and 
Mercury are not exquisite. Your citadel of Acro- 
Corinthus is not strong compared with that which I 
offer to the poorest slave that puts down his burden at 
that brazen gate. You Corinthians think this is a 
splendid city; you think you have heard all sweet 
sounds and seen all beautiful sights ; but I tell you eye 
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into 
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love him." Indeed, both my texts, the 
one spoken by Paul and the one written by Paul, show 
us that we have very imperfect eyesight, and that our 
day of vision is yet to come : for now we see through a 
glass, darklj^, but then face to face. So Paul takes 
the responsibility of saying that even the Bible 
is an indistinct mirror, and that its mission shall be 
finallj^ suspended. I think there may be one Bible in 
heaven fastened to the throne. Just as now, in a mu- 
seum, we have a lamp exhumed from Herculaneum or 
Nineveh, and we look at it with great interest and say : 
How poor a light it must have given, compared with 
our modern lamps," so I think that this Bible, which 
was a lamp to our feet in this Avorld, may lie near the 
throne of God, exciting our interest to all eternity by 
the contrast between its comparatively feeble light and 



44: SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



the illumination of heaven. The Bible, now, is the 
scaffolding" to the rising- temple, but when the building 
is done there will be no use for the scaffolding. The 
idea I shall develop to-day is, that in this world our 
knowledge is comparatively dim and unsatisfactory, but 
nevertheless is introductory to grander and more com- 
plete vision. This is eminently true in regard to our 
view of God. 

CANST THOU FIND OUT GOD?" 

We hear so much about God that we conclude that 
we understand him. He is represented as having the 
tenderness of a father, the firmness of a judge, the 
pomp of a king and the love of a mother. We hear 
about him, talk about him, write about him. We 
lisp his name in infancy, and it trembles on the tongue 
of the dying octogenarian. We think that we know 
very much about him. Take the attribute of mercy. 
Do we understand it ? The Bible blossoms all over 
with that word, mercy. It speaks again and again of 
the tender mercies of God, of the sure mercies, of the 
great mercies, of the mercy that endureth forever, of 
the multitude of his mercies. And yet I know that 
the views we have of this great Being are most in- 
definite, one-sided and incomplete. When, at death, 
the gates shall fly open, and we shall look directly upon 
him, how new andsurprising ! We see upon canvas 
a picture of the morning. We study the cloud in the 
sky, the dew upon the grass, and the husbandman on 
the way to the field. Beautiful picture of the morn- 
ing ! But we rise at daybreak, and go up on a hill to 
see for ourselves that which was represented to us. 
While we look, the mountains are transfigured. The 
burnished gates of heaven swing open and shut, to let 
pass a host of fiery splendors. The clouds are all 



PAUL'S MISSION IN ATHENS. 



45 



abloom, and hang* pendant from arbors of alabaster 
and amethyst. The waters make pathway of inlaid 
pearl for the light to walk upon ; and there is morning 
on the sea. The crags uncover their scarred visage ; 
and there is morning among the mountains. Now you 
go home, and how tame your picture of the morning 
seems in contrast ? Greater than that shall be the 
contrast between this scriptural view of God and that 
which we shall have when standing face to face. This 
is a picture of the morning ; that will be the morning 
itself. 

Again : My texts are true of the Saviour's excel- 
lency. By image and sweet rhythm of expression, and 
startling antitheses, Christ is set forth — his love, his 
compassion, his work, his life, his death, his resurrec- 
tion. We are challenged to measure it, to compute it, 
to weigh it. In the hour of our broken entlirallment 
we mount up into high experience of his love, and 
shout until the countenance glows and the blood 
bounds, and the whole nature is exhilarated. I have 
found him.'' And yet it is through a glass, darkly. 
We see not half of that compassionate face. We feel 
not half the warmth of that loving heart. We wait 
for death to let us rush into His outspread arms. 
Then we shall be face to face. Not shadow then, but 
substance. Not hope then, but the fulfilling of all 
preiigurement. That Avill be a magnificent unfolding ! 

TO SEE EYB. TO EYE. 

The rushing out in view of all hidden excellency ; 
the coming agaui of a long-absent Jesus to meet us — 
not in rags and in penury and death, but amidst a 
light and pomp and outbursting' joy such as none but 
a glorified intelligence could experience I Oh ! to gaze 



46 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

full upon the brow that was lacerated^ upon the side 
that was pierced, upon the feet that were nailed ; to 
stand close up in the presence of him who prayed for 
us on the mountain, and thought of us by the sea, and 
ag'onized for us in the g-arden, and died for us in hor- 
rible crucifixion ; to feel of him, to embrace him, to 
take his hand, to kiss his feet, to run our fingers 
along the scars of ancient suffering; to say: This is 
my Jesus! He gave himself forme. I shall never 
leave his presence. I shall forever behold his glory. 
I shall eternally hear his voice. Lord Jesus, now I 
see thee ! I behold where the blood started, where the 
tears coursed, where the face was distorted. I have 
waited for this hour. I shall never turn my back on 
thee. No more looking through imperfect glasses. 
No more studying thee in the darkness. But as long 
as this throne stands, and this everlasting river flows, 
and those garlands bloom, and these arches of victory 
remain to greet home heaven's conquerors, so long I 
shall see thee, Jesus of my choice ; Jesus of my song ; 
Jesus of my triumph — forever and forever — face to 
face!" 

The idea of my text is just as true when applied to 
God's providence. Who has not come to some pass 
in life thoroughly inexplicable ? You say: " What 
does this mean ? What is God going to do with me 
now ? He tells me that all things work together for 
good. This does not look like it." You continue to 
study the dispensation, and after a while guess about 
what God means. He means to teach me this. I 
think he means to teach me that. Perhaps it is to 
humble my pride. Perhaps it is to make me feel more 
dependent. Perhaps to teach me the uncertainty of 
life." But after all, it is only a guess — a looking 
thl^ough the glass, darkly. The Bible assures us there 



PAULAS raSSION iX ATHENS. 



47 



shall be a satisfactory unfolding. ^Vhat I do thou 
knowest not now: but thou shalt know hereafter.'' 
You will know why God took to himself that onh^ 
child. Xext door there Avas a household of seven 
children. Why not take one from that group, instead 
of your only one ? Why single out the dwelling in 
which there was only one heart beating responsive 
to yours ? Why did God give you a child at all, if 
he meant to take it away ? Why fill the cup of 3'our 
gladness brimming, if lie meant to dash it down ? 
Why allow all the tendrils of jouv heart to wind around 
that object, and then, when every fiber of your own 
life seemed to be interlocked with the child's life, with 
strong hand to tear you apart until you fall bleeding 
and crushed, your dwelling desolate, your hopes 
blasted, your heart broken? Do you suppose that 
God will explain that ? Yea I He Avill make it plainer 
than any mathematical problem — as plain as that two 
and two make four. In the light of tlie throne you 
will see that it was right — all right. ^* Just' and true 
are all thy ways, thou king of saints.*' 

PROVIDENTIAL HIXDRAXCES IX LIFE. 

Here is a man who cannot get on in the world. He 
always seems to buy at the wrong time and to sell at 
the worst disadvantage. He tries this enterprise, and 
fails ; that business, and is disappointed. The man 
next door to him has a lucrative trade, but he lacks 
customers. A new prospect opens, His income is in- 
creased. But that year his family are sick ; and the 
profits are expended in trying to cure the ailmentSo 
He gets a discouraged look. Becomes faithless as to 
success. Begins to expect disasters. Others wait for 
something to turn up ; he waits for it to turn doT\Ti. 



48 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND* 



Others, with only half as much education and charac- 
ter, g"et on twice as well. He sometimes guesses as to 
what it all means. He says : " Perhaps riches would 
spoil me. Pehaps poverty is necessary to keep me 
humble. Perhaps I might, if things were otherwise, 
be tempted into dissipations.'' But there is no com- 
plete solution of the mystery. He sees through a 
glass, darkly, and must wait for a higher unfolding. 
Will there be an explanation ? Yes ; God will take 
that man in the light of the throne, and say : Child 
immortal, hear the explanation ! You remember the 
failing of that great enterprise. This is the explana- 
tion." And 3^ou will answer : It is all right ! " 

I see, eyery day, profound mysteries of Providence. 
There is no question we ask oftener than Why ? There 
are hundreds of graves that need to be explained. 
Hospitals for the blind and lame, asylums for the idi- 
otic and insane, almshouses for the destitute, and a 
world of pain and misfortune that demand more than 
human solution. Ah ! God will clear it all up. In the 
light that pours from the throne, no dark mystery can 
live. Things now utterly inscrutable will be illumined 
as plainly as though the answer were written on the 
jasper wall, or sounded in the temple anthem. Bar- 
timeus will thank God that he was blind ; and Lazarus 
that he was covered with sores ; and Joseph that he 
was cast into the pit ; and Daniel that he was denned 
with the lions ; and Paul that he was humpbacked ; 
and David that he was driven from Jerusalem ; and 
the sewing-woman that she could get only a few pence 
for making a garment ; and that invalid that for 
twenty years he could not lift his head from the pillow ; 
and that widow that she had such hard work to earn 
bread for her children. You know that in a song dif- 
ferent voices carry different parts. The sweet and 



PAULAS MISSION IN ATHENS. 



49 



overwhelming' part of the hallelujah of heaven Avill not 
be carried by those Avho rode in high places, and gave 
sumptuous entertainments ; but pauper children will 
sing it, beggars will sing it, redeemed hod-carriers 
will sing it, those who were once the offscouring of 
earth will sing it. The hallelujah will be all the 
grander for earth's weeping eyes, and aching heads, 
and exhausted hands, and scourged backs, and mar- 
tyred agonies. 

HOW MANY SHALL BE SAVED ? 

Again : The thought of my text is true when applied 
to the enjojaiient of the righteous in heaven. I think 
we have but little idea of the number of the righteous 
in heaven. Infidels say : ^' Your heaven will be a very 
small place compared with the world of the lost : for, 
according to youv teaching, the majority of men will 
be destroyed." I deny the charge. I suppose that the 
multitude of the finally lost, as compared with the 
multitude of the finally saved, will be a handful. I 
suppose that the few sick people in the hospitals of our 
great cities, as compared with the hundreds of thou- 
sands of w^ell people, would not be smaller than the 
number of those who shall be cast out in suffering, 
compared with those who shall have upon them the 
health of heaven. For we are to remember that we 
are living in only the beginning of the Christian dis- 
pensation, and that this wiiole world is to be populated 
and redeemed, and that ages of light and love are to 
flow on. If this be so, the multitudes of the saved will 
be in vast majority. Take all the congregations that 
have assembled for worship throughout Christendom. 
Put them together, and they would make but a small 
audience compared with the thousands and tens of 



50 . SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand, and 
the hundred and forty and four thousand that shall 
stand around the throne. Those flashed up to heaven 
in martyr fires ; those tossed for many years upon the 
invaUd couch ; those fought in the armies of liberty, 
and rose as they fell ; those tumbled from high scd^f- 
folding, or slipped from the mast, or were washed off 
into the sea. They came up from Corinth, from Laod- 
icea, from the Red Sea bank and Gennesaret's wave, 
from Egyptian brickyards, and Gideon's threshing 
floor. Those thousands of years ago slept the last 
sleep, and these are this moment having their eyes 
closed, and their limbs stretched out for the sepulcher. 

A general expecting an attack from the enemy 
stands on a hill and looks through a field glass, and 
sees, in the great distance multitudes approaching, but 
has no idea of their numbers. He says: ^^I cannot 
tell anything about them. I merely know that they 
are a great number." And so John, without attempt- 
ing to count, says : A great multitude that no man 
can number.'^ We are told that heaven is a place of 
happiness ; but what do we know about happiness ? 
Happiness in this world is only a half-fledged thing ; a 
flowery path, with a serpent hissing across it ; a 
broken pitcher, from which the water has dropped be- 
fore we could drink it ; a thrill of exhilaration, followed 
by disastrous re'&.ctions. To help us understand tfte joy 
of heaven, the Bible takes us to a river. We stand on 
the grassy bank. We see the waters flow on with 
ceaseless wave. But the filth of the cities is emptied 
into it, and the banks are torn, and unhealthy exhala- 
tions spring up from it, and we fail to get an idea of 
the river of life in heaven. 



PAUL'S MISSION IN ATHENS. ' 51 



A GLORIOUS AND EVERLASTING REUNION. 

We get very imperfect ideas of the reunions of 
heaven. We think of some festal day on earth, when 
father and mother were yet living, and the children 
came home. A good time that ! But it had this 
drawback — all were not there. That brother went off 
to sea, and never was heard from. That sister — did 
we not lay her aw^ay in the freshness of her young life, 
never more in this world to look upon her ? Ah ! there 
was a skeleton at the feast ; and tears mingled with 
our laughter on that Christmas day. Not so with 
heaven's reunions. It will be an uninterrupted glad- 
ness. Manj^ a Christian parent will look around and 
find all his children there. Ah ! ^' he says^ ^^can it 
be possible that we are all here — lifers perils over ? 
the Jordan passed and not one wanting ? Why, even 
the prodigal is here. I almost gave him up. How 
long he despised my counsels I But grace hath tri- 
umphed. All here ! all here ! Tell the mighty joy 
through the city. Let the bells riag, and the angels 
mention it in their song. Wave it from the top of the 
walls. All here ! 

No more breaking of heartstrings, but face to face. 
The orphans that were left poor, and in a merciless 
world, kicked and cuffed of many hardships, shall join 
their parents over whose graves they so long wept, 
and gaze into their* glorified countenances forever, face 
to face. We may come up from different parts of the 
world, one from the land and another from the depths 
of the sea ; from lives affluent and prosperous, or from 
scenes of ragged distress ; but we shall all meet in 
rapture and jubilee, face to face. 

Many of our friends have entered upon that joy. A 
few days ago they sat with us studying these gospel 



52 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



themes ; but they only saw dimly— now revelation 
hath come. Your time will also come. God will not 
leave you floundering in the darkness. You stand 
wonderstruck and amazed. You feel as if all the 
loveliness of life were dashed out. You stand gazing* 
into the open chasm of the grave. Wait a little. In 
the presence of your departed and of Him who carries 
them in his bosom, you shall soon stand face to face. 
Oh ! that our last hour may kindle up with this prom- 
ised joy ! May we be able to say, like the Christian 
not long ago, departing : Though a pilgrim walk- 
ing through the valley, the mountain tops are gleam- 
ing from peak to peak ! " or, like my dear friend and 
brother, Alfred Cookman, who took his flight to the 
throne of God, saying in his last moment that which 
has already gone into Christian classics : I am 
sweeping through the pearly gate, washed in the blood 
of the Lamb ! 



LIFE AND DEATH OF DORCAS. 



And all the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the 
coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was with 
them." — Acts ix., 39. 

Christians of Joppa ! Impressed as I am with, your ^ 
mosque, the first I ever saw, and stirred as I am with 
the fact that your harbor once floated the great rafts 
of Lebanon cedar from which the temples at Jerusalem 
werebuilded, Solomon's oxen drawing* the logs through 
this very town on the w^ay to Jurusalem, nothing can 
make me forget that this Joppa was the birthplace of 
the sewing society that has blessed the poor of all suc- 
ceeding ages in all lands. The disasters to your town 
when Judas Maccabaeus set it on fire, and Napoleon 
had five hundred prisoners massacred in your neighbor- 
hood, cannot make me forget that one of the most 
magnificent charities of the centuries was started in 
this seaport by Dorcas, a woman with her needle em- 
broidering her name ineffaceably into the beneficence 
of the vv'orld. I see her sitting in ^^onder home. In 
the doorway and around about the building, and in 
the room where she sits, are the pale faces of the poor. 
She listens to their plaint, she pities their woe, she 
makes garments for them, she adjusts the manu- 
factured articles to suit the bent form of this invalid 
w^oman, and to the cripple that comes crawling on his 
hands and knees. She gives a coat to this one, she 
gives sandals to that one. With the gifts she mingles 
prayers and tears and Christian encouragement. 



54 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Then she goes out to be greeted on the street corners 
by those whom she has blessed, and all through the 
street the cry is heard : Dorcas is coming ! The 
sick look up gratefully into her face as she puts her 
hand on the burning brow, and the lost and the aban- 
doned start up with hope as they hear her gentle voice, 
as though an angel had addressed them ; and as she 
goes out the lane, eyes half put out with sin think they 
see a halo of light about her brow and a trail of glory 
in her pathway. That night a half-paid shipwright 
climbs the hill and reaches home, and sees his little 
boy well clad, and says : " Where did these clothes 
come from ? And they tell him, " Dorcas has been 
here." In another place a woman is trimming a lamp ; 
Dorcas brought the oil. In another place, a family 
that had not been at table for many a week are 
gathered now, for Dorcas has brought bread. 



DORCAS IS DEAD.'' 

But there is a sudden pause in that woman's ministry. 
They say : " Where is Dorcas ? Why, we haven't seen 
her for many a day. Where is Dorcas?" And one 
of these poor people goes up and knocks at the door 
and finds the mystery solved. All through the haunts 
of wretchedness the news comes, ''Dorcas is sick!" 
No bulletin flashing from the palace gate, telling the 
stages of a king's disease, is more anxiously awaited 
for than the new^s from this sick benefactress. Alas 
for Joppa ! there is waiUng, wailing. That voice which 
has uttered so many cheerful words is hushed ; that 
hand which had made so many garments for the poor 
is cold and still ; the star which had poured light into 
the midnight of wretchedness is dimmed by the blind- 
ing mists that go up from the river of death. In every 



LIFE AND DEATH OF DORCAS. 



55 



Godforsaken place in this town ; wherever there is a 
sick chikl and no bahn : wlierever there is hunger and 
no bread ; wherever there is guilt and no commiser- 
ation : wherever there is a broken heart and no com- 
fort, there are despairing looks, and streaming eyes, 
and frantic gesticulations as they cry : Dorcas is 
dead I" They send for the apostle Peter, who happens 
to be in the suburbs of this place, stopping with a 

, tanner hj the name of Simon. Peter urges his way 
through the crowd around the door, and stands in the 
presence of the dead. What expostulation and grief 
all about him I Here stand some of the poor people, 
who show the garments which this poor woman had 
made for them. Their grief cannot be appeased. The 
apostle Peter wants to perform a miracle. He will not 
do it amidst the excited crowd, so he kindly orders 
that the whole room be cleared. The door is shut 
against the populace. The apostle stands now with 
Wie dead. Oh., it is a serious moment, you know, when 
you are alone with a lifeless body I The apostle gets 
down on his knees and prays, and then he comes to the 

[- lifeless form of this one all ready for the sepulcher, and 
in the strength of Him who is the resurrection, he ex- 
claims: Tabitha, arise 1 There is a stir in the foun- 
tains of life: the heart flutters ; the nerves thrill; the 
cheek flushes : the eye opens ; she sits up I 

We see in this subject Dorcas the disciple, Dorcas 
the benefactress, Dorcas the lamented, Dorcas the 
resurrected. 

A MODEL FOR ALL WOMEN. 

If I had not seen that word disciple in my text I 
would have known this woman was a Christian. Such 
music as that never came from a heart which is not 
chorded and strung b\' divine grace. Before I show 



56 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



you the needlework of this woman I want to show you 
her regenerated heart, the source of a pure life and of 
all Christian charities. I wish that the wives and 
mothers and daughters and sisters of all the earth 
would imitate Dorcas in her discipleship. Before you 
cross the threshold of the hospital, before you enter 
upon the temptations and trials of to-morrow, I charge 
you, in the name of God and by the turmoil and tumult 
of the judgment day, O woman ! that you attend to 
the first, last and greatest duty of your life — the seek- 
ing for God and being at peace with him. When the 
trumpet shall sound there will be an uproar and a 
wreck of mountain and continent, and no human arm 
can help you. Amidst the rising of the dead, and 
amidst the boiling of yonder sea, and amidst the live, 
leaping thunder of the flying heavens, calm and placid 
will be every woman's heart who hath put her trust in 
Christ ; calm, notwithstanding all the tumult, as 
though the fire in the heavens were only the gildings « 
of an autumnal sunset, as though the peal of the trum- , 
pet were only the harmony of an orchestra, as though . 
the awful voices of the sky were but a group of friends 
bursting through a gateway at eventime with laugh- 
ter, and shouting: ^* Dorcas, the disciple!" Would 
God that every Mary and every Martha would this day 
sit down at the feet of Jesus ! 

DOKCAS, THE BENEFACTRESS. 

Further, we see Dorcas, the benefactress. History 
has told the story of the crown ; the epic poet has sung 
of the sword ; the pastoral poet, with his verses full of 
tho redolence of clover tops and a-rustle with the silk 
of the corn, has sung the praises of the plow. I tell 
you the praises of the needle. From the fig-leaf robe 
prepared in the Garden of Eden to the last stitch taken 



LIFE i^ND DEATH OF DORCAS. 



57 



on the garment for the poor, the needle has wrought 
wonders of kindness, generosity and benefaction. It 
adorned the girdle of the high-priest ; it fashioned the 
curtains in the ancient tabernacle ; it cushioned the 
chariots of King Solomon ; it provided the robes of , 
Queen Elizabeth, and in high places and in low places, 
by the fire of the pioneer's back log and under the flash 
of the chandelier, everywhere, it has clothed naked- 
ness, it has preached the gospel, it has overcome hosts 
of penury and want with the war cry of Stitch, stitch, 
stitch ! The operatives have found a livelihood by it, 
and through it the mansions of the emploj^er have been 
constructed. Amidst the greatest triumphs in all ages 
and lands, I set down the conquests of the needle. I 
admit its crimes ; I admit its cruelties. It has had 
more martyrs than the fire ; it has punctured the eye ; 
it has pierced the side ; it has struck weakness into 
the lungs ; it has sent madness into the brain ; it has 
filled the Potter's Field ; it has pitched whole armies 
of the suffering into crime and wretchedness and woe. 
But now that I am talking of Dorcas and her minis- 
tries to the poor, I shall speak only of the charities of 
the needle. 

TRUE CHARITY. 

This w^oman was a representative of all those women 
who make garments for the destitute, who knit socks 
for the barefoted, who prepare bandages for the lacer- 
ated, who fix up boxes of clothing for missionaries, who , 
go into the asylums of the suffering and destitute bear- 
ing that gospel which is sight for the blind, and hearing 
for the deaf, and which makes the lame man leap like a 
hart, and brings the dead to life, immortal health 
bounding in their pulses. What a contrast between 
the practical benevolence of this woman and a great 
deal of the charity of this day ! This woman did not 



58 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



spend her time idly planning how the poor of your city, 
Joppa, were to be relieved ; she took her needle and re- 
lieved them. She was not like those persons who sym- 
pathize with imaginary sorrows, and go out in the 
street and laugh at the boy who has upset his basket of 
cold victuals, or like that charity which makes a rous- 
ing speech on the benevolent platform, and goes out to 
kick the beggar from the step, crying : Hush your 
miserable howling ! The sufferers of the world want 
not so much theory as practice ; not so much tears as 
dollars ; not so much kind wishes as loaves of bread ; 
not so much smiles as shoes ; not so much " God bless 
you's ! " as jackets and frocks. I will put one earnest 
Christian man, hard working, against five thousand 
mere theorists on the subject of charity. There are a 
great manj^- who have fine ideas about church archi- 
tecture who never in their life helped to build a church. 
There are men who can give you the history of Budd- 
hism and Mohammedanism, who never sent a farthing 
for their evangelization. There are women who talk 
beautifully about the suffering of the world, who never 
had the courage like Dorcas to take the needle and as- 
sault it. 

woman's BENEVOLENCE. 

I am glad that there is not a page of the world's his^ 
tory which is not a record of female benevolence. God 
says to all lands and people. Come now and hear the 
widow's mite rattle down into the poor box. The Prin- 
cess of Conti sold all her jewels that she might help 
the famine stricken. Queen Blanche, the wife oj Louis 
VIII. of France, hearing that there were some persons 
unjustly incarcerated in the prisons, went out amidst 
the rabble and took a stick and struck the door as a 
signal that they might all strike it, and down went the 
prison door, and out came the prisoners. Queen Maud, 



LIFE AND DEATH OF DORCAS. 



59 



the wife of Henry I., went down amidst the poor and 
washed their sores, and administered to tliem cordials. 
Mrs. Retson, at Matagorda, appeared on the battle 
field while the missiles of death were flying around, 
and cared for the wounded . Is there a man or woman 
who has ever heard of the civil war in America who 
has not heard of the women of the Sanitary and Chris- 
tian Commissions^ or the fact- that, before the smoke 
had g'one up from Gettysburg and South Mountain, 
the women of the North met the women of the^ South 
on the battle field, forgetting all their animosities while 
they bound up the wounded, and closed the eyes of the 
slain ? Dorcas, the benefactress I 

DORCAS, THE LAMENTED. 

I come nov>'to speak of Dorcas, the lamented. When 
death struck down that good woman, oh, how much 
sorrow there was in this town of Joppa ! I suppose 
there were women here with larger fortunes : women, 
perhaps, with handsomer faces ; but tiiere was no gviet 
at their departure like this at the death of Dorcas. 
There was not more turmoil and upturning in the 
Mediterranean Sea, dashing against the wharves of 
this seaport, than there were surgings to and fro of 
grief because Dorcas was dead. There are a great 
many who go out of life and are unmissed. There 
may be a very large funeral ; there may be a great 
many carriages and a plumed hearse ; there may be 
high sounding eulogiums : the bell may toll at the 
cemeterj^ gate; there may be a very fine marble shaft 
reared over the resting-place; but the whole thing 
may be a falsehood and a sham. The Church of God 
has lost nothing; the world has lost nothing. It is only 
a nuisance abated ; it is only a grumbler ceasing to 
find fault ; it is onh' an idler stopped ^^awning ; it is 



60 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



only a dissipated fashionable parted from his wine 
cellar ; while, on the other hand, no useful Christian 
leaves this world without being- missed. The Church 
of God cries out like the prophet, " Howl, Ur tree, for 
the cedar has fallen/* Widowhood comes and shows 
the garments which the departed had made. Orphans 
are hfted up to look into the calm face of the sleeping 
benefactress. Keclaimed vagrancy comes and kisses 
the cold brow of her who charmed it away from sin, 
and all through the streets of Joppa there is mourn- 
ing — mourning because Dorcas is dead. 

When Josephine of France was carried out to her 
grave there were a g-reat many men and women 
of pomp and pride and position that went out after 
her ; but I am most affected by the story of his- 
tory that on that day there were ten thousand of 
the poor of France'who followed her cofFm, weeping 
and wailing" until the air rang again, because when 
they lost Josephine they lost their last earthly 
friend. Oh^ 'who would not rather have such obse- 
quies than all the tears that were ever poured in the 
lachrymals that have been exhumed from ancient cities? 
There may be no mass for the dead ; there may be 
no costly sarcophagus ; there may be no elaborate 
mausoleum ; but in the damp cellars of the city and 
through the lonely huts of the mountain glen there 
will be mourning, mourning, mourning, because Dorcas 
is dead ! ' ' Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ; 
they rest from their labors, and their works do follow 
them.'' 

DORCAS, THE RESURRECTED. 

I speak to you of Dorcas, the resurrected. The 
apostle came to where she was, and said: ^^Arise! and 
she sat up." In what a short compass the great 
writer put that: ''She sat up ! Oh, what a time there 



LIFE AND DEATH OF DORCAS. 



61 



must have been around this town when the apostle 
brought her out among her old friends ! How the 
tears of joy must have started ! What clapping of 
hands there must have been ! What singing ! What 
laughter I Sound it all through that lane I Shout it 
down that dark allej^ ! Let all Joppa hear it ! Dorcas 
is resurrected ! 

You and I have seen the same thing many a time ; 
not a dead body resuscitated^ but the deceased coming 
up again after death in the good accomplished. If a 
man labors up to fifty years of age^ serving God, and 
then dies, we are apt to think that his earthh^ work is 
done. No ! His influence on earth will continue till 
the world ceases. Services rendered for Christ never 
stop. A Christian woman toils for the upbuilding of 
a church through many anxieties, through many self- 
denials, with prayers and tears, and then she dies. It 
is fifteen j^ears siuce she went away. Now the spirit 
of God descends upon that church ; hundreds of souls 
stand up and confess the faith of Christ. Has that 
Christian woman, who went aY\3.y fifteen j^ears ago, 
nothing to do with these things ? I see the flowering 
out of her noble heart. I hear the echo of her footsteps 
in all the songs over sins forgiven, in all the prosperit}^ 
of the church. The good that seemed to be buried has 
come up again. Dorcas is resurrected.^ 

ASLEEP IN JESUS. 

After awhile all these womanly friends of Christ will 
put down their needles forever. After making gar- 
ments for others, someone will make a garment for 
them — the last robe we ever wear— the robe for the 
grave. You will have heard the last cry of pain. You 
will have witnessed the last orphanage. You will have 
come in worn out f i^om your last round of mercy. I do 



62 



serMoks on the holy LAJSTD. 



not know where you will sleep^ nor what your epitaph 
will he ; hut there will he a lamp hurning* at that tomh 
and an angel of God guarding- it, and through all the 
long night no rude foot will disturb the dust. . Sleep on, 
sleep on ! Soft bed, pleasant shadows, undisturbed re- 
pose ! Sleep on ! 

Asleep in Jesus ! Blessed sleep ! 
From which none ever wake to weep. 

Then one day there will be a sky rending, and a 
whirl of wheels, and the flash of a pageant ; armies 
marching, chains clanking, banners waving, thunders 
booming, and that Christian woman will arise from the 
dust, and she will be suddenly surrounded — surrounded 
by the wanderers of the street whom she reclaimed ; 
surrounded by the wounded souls to whom she admin- 
istered ! Daughter of God, so strangely surrounded, 
what means this ? It means that reward has come ; 
that the victory is won ; that the crown is ready ; that 
the banquet is spread. Shout it through all the crumb- 
ling earth. Sing it through all the flying heavens. 
Dorcas is resurrected ! 

THE GREAT AND FINAL REW^ARD. 

In 1855, when some of the soldiers come back from 
the Crimean war to London, the Queen of England dis- 
tributed among them beautiful medals, called Crimean 
medals. Galleries were erected for the two houses of 
parliament and the ro^^al family to sit in. There was 
a great audience to witness the distribution of the 
medals. A colonel, who had lost both feet in the battle 
of Inkerman, was pulled in on a wheel chair ; others 
came in limping on their crutches. Then the Queen of 
England arose before them in the name of her govern- 
ment and uttered words of commendation to the officers 



LIFE AND DEATH OF DORCAS. 



65 



and men, and distributed these medals, inscribed with 
the four great battlefields— Ahna, Balaklava, Inker- 
man*and Sebastopol. As the queen gave these to the 
Avounded men and the wounded officers, the bands of 
music struck up the national air, and the people, with 
streaming eyes, joined in the song^: 

God save our gracious queen ! 
Long live our noble queen ! 
God save the queen ! 

And then they shouted : Huzza ! huzza I " 0, it was 
a proud daj^ for those returned warriors I But a 
brighter, better and gladder day will come, when Christ 
shall gather those who have toiled in his service, good 
soldiers of Jesus Christ. He shall rise before them, 
and in the presence of all the glorified of heaven he 
will say : Well done, good and faithful servant ! and 
then he will distribute the medals of eternal victorj', 
not inscribed with works of righteousness which we 
have done, but with those four great battlefields, dear 
to earth and dear to heaven, Bethlehem ! Nazareth ! 
Gethsemane I Calvary ! 



\ 



THE GLORY OF SOLOMON'S REIGN. 



Jerusalem ! Jerusp-lem ! " — Matthew xxiii., 37. 



This exclamation burst from Christ's lips as lie came 
in sig-lit of this great city, and although, things have 
marvelously changed, who can visit Jerusalem to-day 
without having its mighty past roll over him, and or- 
dinary utterance must give place Tor the exclamatory 
as we cry O Jerusalem, Jerusalem '! Disappointed with 
the Holy Land many have been, and I have heard good 
friends say that their ardor about sacred places had 
been so dampened that they were sorry they ever 
visited Jerusalem. But with me the city and its sur- 
roundings are a rapture, a solemnity, an overwhelming 
emotion. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! The procession 
of kings, conquerors, poets and immortal men and 
women pass before me as I stand here. Among the 
throng are Solomon, David and Christ. Yes, through 
these streets and amid these surroundings rode Sol- 
omon, that wonder of splendor and wretchedness. It 
seemed as if the world exhausted itself on that man. 
It wove its brightest flowers into his garland. It set 
its richest gems in his coronet. It pressed the rarest 
wine to his lips. It robed him in the purest purple 
and embroidery. It cheered him with the sweetest 
music in that land of harps. It greeted him with the 
gladdest laughter that ever leaped from mirth's lip. 
It sprinkled his cheek with spra3^ from the brightest 
fountains. Royalty had no dominion, wealth no lux- 
ury, g-old no glitter, flowers no sweetness, m)ng' no 



THE GLORY OF SOLOMON'S REIGN. 



65 



melod}^^ light no radiance, upholstery no gorgeous- 
ness, waters no gleam, birds no plumage, prancing 
coursers no mettle, architecture no grandeur, but it 
was all his. Across the thick grass of the la^vn, fra- 
grant with tufts of camphire from Engedi, fell the long 
shadows of trees brought from distant forests. Fish 
pools, fed by artificial channels that brought the 
streams from hills far away, were perpetually ruffled 
with fins, and golden scales shot from water cave to 
water cave with endless dive and swirl, attracting the 
gaze of foreign potentates. Birds that had been 
brought from foreign aviaries glanced and fluttered 
among the foliage, and called to their mates far be- 
yond the sea. From the royal stables there came up 
the neighing of twelve thousand horses standing in 
blankets of T^^rian purple, chewing their bits over 
troughs of gold, waiting for the king's order to be 
brought out in front of the palace, when the official dig- 
nitaries Avould leap into the saddle for some grand pa- 
rade; or, harnessed to some of the fourteen hundred 
chariots of the king, the ^evy chargers, with flaunting 
mane and throbbing nostril, would make the earth jar 
with the tramp of hoofs and the thunder of wheels. 
While within and without the palace 3^ou could not 
think of a single luxur3^ that could be added, or of a 
single splendor that could be kindled; down on the 
banks of the sea the dr^^docks of Ezion-geber rang 
with the hammers of the shipwrights who were con- 
structing larger vessels for a still wider commerce ; 
for all lands and climes were to be robbed to make up 
Solomon's glory. No rest till his keels shall cut every 
sea, his axmen hew ever^^ forest, his archers strike 
every rare wing, his fishermen wiiip ever^^ stream, his 
merchants trade in ever}" bazar, his name be honored 
by every tribe \ and royalty" shall have no dominion, 



66 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



wealth no luxury, gold no g-litter, song* no melody, 
light no radiance, waters no gleam, birds no plumage, 
prancing coursers no mettle, upholstery no gorgeous- 
ness, architecture no grandeur, but it was all his. 

VANITY, VANITY— ALL IS VANITY." 

Well," you say, ^Mf there is any man happy, he 
ought to be." But I hear him coming out through the 
palace, and see his robes actually incrusted with jewels, 
as he stands in the front and looks out upon the vast 
domain. What does he say ? King Solomon, great is 
j^our dominion, great is your honor, great is your jo.y? 
No. While standing here amidst all the splendor, the 
tears start, and his heart breaks and he exclaims : 

Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity. " What ! Solomon 
not happy yet ? No, not happy. The honors and the 
emoluments of this world bring so many cares with 
them that they bring also torture and disquietude. 
Pharaoh sits on one of the highest earthly eminences, 
yet he is miserable because there are some people in 
his realm that do not want any longer to make bricks. 
The head of Edward I. aches under his crown, because 
the people will not pay the taxes, and Llewellyn, Prince 
of Wales, will not do him homage, and Wallace will be 
a hero. Frederick William III. of Prussia is miserable 
because France wants to take the Prussian provinces. 
The world is not large enough for Louis XIV. and 
William III. The ghastliest suffering, the most shriv- 
eling fear, the most rending jealousies, the most gigan- 
tic disquietude, have walked amidst obsequious cour- 
tiers, and been clothed in royal apparel, and sat on 
judgment seats of power. 

Honor and truth and justice cannot go so high up in 
authority as to be beyond the range of human assault. 
The pure a^nd the goo(J m all ages have be^n execrated 



^rHE GLORY OF SOLOMON^S REIGK. 6T 

by the mob who cry out: ^' Not this man, but Bar abbas. 
Now, Barabbas was a robber." By honesty, by Chris- 
tian principle, I would have jou seek for the favor and 
the confidence of your fellow men, but do not look upon 
some higii position as though that were always sun- 
shine. The mountains of earthly honor are like the 
mountains of Switzerland, covered with perpetual ice 
and snow. Having* obtained the confidence and love of 
your associates, be content with such things as you 
have. You brought nothing into the world, and it is 
very certain you can carry nothing out. Cease ye 
from man, whose breath is in his nostrils." There is 
an honor that is worth possessing, but it is an honor 
that comes from God. This day rise up and take it. 
" Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.^' 
Who aspires not for that royalty ?^ Come now, and be 
kings and priests unto God and the Lamb forever. 

If wealth and wisdom could have satisfied a man, 
Solomon would have been satisfied. To say that Solo- 
mon was a millionaire gives but a very imperfect idea 
of the property he inherited from David, his father. 
He had at his command gold to the value of six hun- 
dred and eighty million pounds, and he had silver to 
the value of one billion, twenty-nine million, three hun- 
dred and seventy-seven pounds sterling. The queen of 
Sheba made him a nice little present of seven hundred 
and twenty thousand pounds, and Hiram made him a 
present of the same amount. If he had lost the value 
of a whole realm out of his pocket, it would have 
hardly been worth his while to stoop down and pick it 
up. He wrote one thousand and five songs. He wrote 
three thousand proverbs. He wrote about almost 
everything. The Bible sa^^s distinctly he wrote about 
plants, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop 



68 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



that groweth out of the wall, and about birds and 
beasts and fishes. No doubt he put off his royal robes 
and put on hunter's trapping*, and went out with his 
arrows to bring* down the rarest specimens of birds; 
and then with his fishing* apparatus he went down to 
the stream to bring* up the denizens of the deep, and 
plunged into the forest and found the rarest specimens 
of flowers ; and then he came back to his study and 
w^rote books about zoology, the science of animals; 
about ichthyology, the science of fishes; about ornith- 
ology, the science of birds; about botany, the science 
of plants. Yet, notwithstanding all his wisdom and 
wealth, behold his wretchedness and let him pass on. 
Did any other city ever behold so wonderful a man ? 
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! 

DAVID'S GREATEST GRIEF. 

But here passes through these sti-eets, as in imagina- 
tion I see him, quite as wonderful and a far better 
man. David, the conqueror, the king, the poet. Can 
it be that I am in the very city where he lived and 
reigned ? David, great for power, and great for grief. 
He was wrapped up in his boy Absalom. He was a 
splendid boy, judged hy the rules of worldly criticism. 
From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot there 
was not a single blemish. The Bible saj^s that he had 
such a luxuriant shock of hair that, when once a year 
it was shorn, what was cut oft' weighed over three 
pounds. But, notwithstanding all his biilliancy of 
appearance, he was a bad boy, and broke his father's 
heart. He was plotting to get the 'throne of Israel. 
He had marshaled an army to overthrow his father's 
government. The day of. battle had come. The con- 
flict was begun. David, the father, sat between the 
gates of the palace waiting for the tidings of the con- 



I^HE GLORY OF SOLOMON'S REIGN. 



69 



flict. Oh, liow rapidly his heart beat with emotion ! 
Two great questions were to be decided : the safety of 
his boy, and the continuance of the throne of Israel. 
After awhile a servant, standing' on the top of a house, 
looks off, and he sees someone running. He is coming 
with great speed, and the man on the top of the house 
announces the coming of the messenger, and the father 
watches and waits ; and as soon as the messenger from 
the field of battle comes within hailing distance the 
father cries out. Is it a question in regard to the es- 
tablishment of his throne ? Does he say : ^ ^^Have the 
armies of Israel been victorious ? Am I to continue 
in my imperial authority? Have I overthrown my 
enemies?'' Oh, no! There is one question that 
springs from his heart to the lip, and springs from the 
lip into the ear of the besweated and bedusted messen- 
ger flying from the battlefield — the question : Is the 
young man, Absalom, safe V' When it was told to 
David, the king, that, though liis armies had been vic- 
torious, his son had been slain, the father turned his 
back upon the congratulations of the nation, and went 
up the stairs of the palace, his heart breaking as he 
went, Avringing his hands sometimes, and then again 
pressing them against his temples as though he woula 
press them in, crying : O Absalom I my son I my son ! 
Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom I my son ! 
my son I ' ' Stupendous grief of David resounding 
through all succeeding ages. This was the city that 
heard the woe. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! 

I am also thrilled and overpowered with the remem' 
brance that yonder, where now stands a Mohammedan 
mosque, stood the Temple, the very one that Christ 
visited. Solomon's temple had stood there, but Neb- 
uchadnezzar thundered it down. Zerubbabel's temple 
had stood there, but that had been prostrated. Then 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Herod built a temple because he was fond of great 
architecture^ and he wanted the preceding* temples to 
seem insignificant. Put eight or ten modern cathe- 
drals together and they would not equal that structure. 
It covered nineteen acres. There were marble pillars 
supporting roofs of cedar^ and silver tables on which 
stood golden cups, and there were carvings exquisite 
and inscriptions resplendent, glittering balustrades, 
and ornamented gateways. The building of this tem- 
ple kept ten thousand workmen busy for forty-six 
years. Stupendous pile of pomp and magnificence ! 
But the material and architectural grandeur of the 
building were very tame compared with the spiritual 
meaning of its altars and holy of holies, and the over- 
whelming significance of its ceremonies. O Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem! 

Christ's last visit there. 

But standing in this old city all other facts are 
eclipsed when we think that near here our blessed 
Lord was born, that up and down the streets of this 
city he walked, and that in the outskirts of it he died. 
Here was his only day of triumph, and his assassina- 
tion. One day this old Jerusalem is at the tip top of 
excitement. Christ has been doing some remarkable 
works and asserting very high authority. The police 
court has issued papers for his arrest, for this thing 
must be stopped, as the Yery government is imperiled. 
News comes that last night this strang'er arrived at a 
suburban village, and that he is stopping at the house 
of a man whom he had resuscitated after four da^^s' 
sepulture. Well, the people rush out into the streets, 
some with the idea of helping in the arrest of this 
stranger when he arrives, and others expecting that 
on the morrow he will come into the town, and by 



THE GLORY OF SOLOMOX'S REIGX. 71 

some supernatural force oust the municipal and royal 
authorities and take ever\i:hing' in his own hands. 
They pour out of the city g-ates until the x>rocession 
reaches to the village. They come all around about 
the house where the srrang*er is stopping, and peer 
into the doors and windows that they may g'et one 
g'limpse of him or hear the hum of his voice. The 
pohce dare not make the arrest, because he has some- 
how won the affections of all the people. Oh, it is a 
lively nigrht in yonder Bethany I The heretofore quiet 
villagre is filled with uproar and outcry and loud dis- 
cussions about the strange acting countryman. I do 
not think there was any sleep in that house that nig*ht 
where the strang-er was stopping. Althoug-h he came 
in weaiy, he finds no rest, though for once in his life- 
time he had a pillow. But the morning- dawns, the 
olive g-ardens wave in the lig'ht, and all along yonder 
road, reaching over the top of Olivet toward this city, 
there is a vast, swaying crowd of wondering people. 
The excitement around the door of the cottage is wild 
as the stranger steps out beside an unbroken colt that 
had never been mounted, and after his friends had 
strewn their garments on the beast for a saddle, the 
Saviour mounts it, and the populace, excited, and 
shouting, and feverish, push on back toward this 
city of Jerusalem. Let none jeer now or scoff at 
this rider, or the populace will trample him under foot 
in an instant. There is one long shout of two miles, 
and as far as the eye can reach you see waving*s of 
demonstrations and approval. There was something 
in the rider's visage, something in his majestic brow, 
something in his princely behavior, that stilus up the 
enthusiasm of the people. They rim up against the 
beast and try to pull the rider off into their arms, and 
carry on their shoulders the illustrious stranger. The 



72 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



populace are so excited that they hardly know what 
to do with themselves;, and some rush up to the road- 
side trees and wrench off branches and throw them in 
his way ; and others doff their g-arments^ what thoug-h 
they be new and costlj^, and spread them for a carpet 
for the conqueror to ride over. Hosanna ! cry the 
people at the foot of the hill. ^'Hosanna ! cry the 
people all up and down the mountain. The procession 
has now come to the brow of yonder Olivet. Magnifi- 
cent prospect reaching out in every direction — vine- 
yards, olive groves, jutting rock, silvery Siloam, and 
above all, rising on its throne of hilis, this most highly 
honored city of all the earth, Jerusalem. Christ there, 
in the midst of the procession, looks off and sees here 
fortressed gates, and yonder the circling wall, and 
here the towers blazing in the sun, Phasaelus and 
Mariamne. Yonder is Hippicus, the king's castle. 
Looking along in the range of the larger branch 
of that olive tree, you see the mansions of the mer- 
chant princes. Through this cleft in the limestone 
rock you see the palace of the richest trafficker in all 
the earth. He has made his money by selling Tyrian 
purple. Behold now the temple ! Clouds of smoke 
lifting from the shimmering roof, while the building' 
rises up beautiful, grand, majestic, the architectural 
skill and glory of the earth, lifting themselves there in 
one triumphant doxology, the frozen prayer of all 
nations. 

PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 

The crowd looked around to see exhilaration and 
transport in the face of Christ. Oh, no ! Out from 
amid the gates, and the domes, and the palaces, there 
arose a vision of this city's sin, and of this city's doom 
which obliterated the landscape from horizon to hori^ 





THE GLORY OF SOLOMON'S REIGN. 73 

zon, and he burst into tears, crying- : O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem!'^ But that was the only day of pomp 
that Jesus saw in and around this city. Yet he walked 
the streets of this city the loveliest and most majestic 
being- the world ever saw or ever will see. Publius 
Lentilus, in a letter to the Roman senate, describes 
him as a man of stature somewhat tall ; his hair the 
color of a chestnut fully ripe, plain to the ears, whence 
downward it is more orient, curling* and waving- about 
the shoulders ; in the midst of his forehead is a stream, 
or partition of his hair ; forehead plain, and very deli- 
cate ; his face without spot or wrinkle, a lovely red ; 
his nose.and mouth so formed as nothing can be repre- 
sented ; his beard thick, in color like his hair — not 
very long- ; his eyes gray, quick and clear." He must 
die. The French army in Italy found a brass plate on 
which was a copy of his death warrant, signed by 
John Zerubbabel, Raphael Robani, Daniel Robani and 
Capet. 

Sometimes men on the way to the scaffold have been 
rescued b3^ the mob. No such attempt was made in 
this case, for the mob were against him. From nine in 
the morning till three in the afternoon, Jesus hung a-dy- 
ing in the outskirts of the city. It was a scene of blood. 
We are so constituted that nothing is so exciting as 
blood. It is not the child's cry in the street that so 
^ arouses you as the crimson dripping from its lip. In 
the dark hall, seeing the finger marks of blood on the 
plastering, you cry: *^What terrible deed has been 
done here?'' Looking upon this suspended victim of 
the cross, we thrill with the sight of blood — blood drip- 
ping from thorn and nail, blood rushing upon his 
cheek, blood saturating his garments, blood gathered 
in a pool beneath. It is' called an honor to have in 
one's veins the blood of the house of Stuart, or of the 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



house of Hapsburg. Is it nothing when I point you to 
the outpouring blood of the king of the universe. 

In England the name of Henry was so great that 
its honors were divided among different reigns. It 
was Henry the First, and Henry the Second, and 
Henry the Third, and Henry the Fourth, and Henry 
the Fifth. In France the name of Louis was so favor- 
ably regarded that it was Louis the First, Louis the 
Second, Louis the Third, and so on. But the king 
who walked these streets was Christ the First, Christ 
the Last, and Christ the Only. He reigned before 
the Czar mounted the throne of Russia, or the throne 
of Austria was lifted, ''^ King ; Eternal, Immortal.'' 
Through the indulgences of the roj^al fsnmly, the 
physical Jife degenerates, and some of the kings have 
been almost imbecile, and their bodies weak, and 
their blood thin and watery; but the crimson life 
that flowed upon Calvary had in it the health of the 
immortal God. 

THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 

Tell it now to all the earth and to all the heavens — 
Jesus, our king, is sick with his last sickness. Let 
couriers carry the swift dispatch. His pains are worse ; 
he is breathing a last groan ; through his body quivers 
the last anguish; the king is dying; the king is dead ! 
It is royal blood. 

It is said that some religionists make too much of the 
humanity of Christ. I respond that we make too little. 
If some Roman surgeon standing under the cross had 
caught one drop of the blood on his hand and anal3^zed 
it, it would have been found to have the same plasma, 
the same disc, the same fibrin, the same albumen. It 
was unmistakably human blood. It is a man that 
hangs there. His bones are of the same material as 



TH^] GLORY OF SOLOMON'S REIGK. 



75 



ours. His nei^^es are sensitive like ours. If it were 
an angel being despoiled I would not feel it so much, 
for it belongs to a different order of beings. But my 
Saviour is a man, and my whole sympathy is aroused. 
I can imagine how the spikes felt — how hot the temples 
burned — what deathly sickness seized his heart — how 
mountain and city and mob swam away from his dying 
vision — something of the meaning of that cry for help 
that makes the blood of all the ages curdle with horror : 
My God ! my God I why hast thou forsaken me ? '* 
Forever with all these scenes of a Saviour's suffer- 
ing will this city be associated. Here his unjust trial 
and here his death. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! 

But finally, I am thrilled Avith the»fact that this city 
is a symbol of heaven, which is only another Jerusalem. 
"The New Jerusalem!'' And this thought has kin- 
dled the imagination of all the sacred poets. I am glad 
that Horatio Bonar, the Scotch hymnist, rummaged 
among old manuscripts of the British Museum until he 
found that hymn in ancient spelling, parts of which we 
have in mutilated form in our modern hymn books, but 
the quaint power of which we do not get in our modern 
versions : 

HierLisalem, my happy home! 

When shall I come to thee! 
When shall my sorrowes have an end, 

Tny joys when shaU I see? 

Noe dampish mist is seene in thee, 

Noecolde nor darksome night; 
There everie soule shines as the sunne. 

There God himselfe gives light. 

The walls are made of pretious stones, 
Thy bulwarkes diamondes square ; 

Thy gates are of right orient pearle, 
Exceed inge riche and rare. 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Thy turrettes and thy pinnacles 

With carbuncles doe shine; 
Thy verrie streets are paved with gould, 

Surpassinge cleare and fine. 

Thy houses are of yvorie, 

Thy windows crystal cleare, 
Thy tyles are made of beaten gould, 

O God ! that I were there. 

Our sweete is mixt with bitter gaule. 

Our pleasure is but paine ; 
Our ioyes scarce last the lookeing on, 

Our sorrowes stille remaine. 

But there they live in such delight, 

Such pleasure and such play. 
As that to them a thousand yeares 

Doth seme as yesterday. 

Thy gardens and thy gallant walkes 

Continually are greene; 
There grow such sweete and pleasant flowers 

As nowhere else are scene. 

There trees forevermore beare fruite, 

And evermore doe springe; 
There evermore the angels sit. 

And evermore doe singe. 

Hierusalem ! my happie home ! 

Would God I were in thee ! 
Would God my woes were at an end, 

Thy ioyes that I might see ! 



PEACE, BE STILL ! 



''Entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Caper- 
naum. ' — John vi., 17. 

"And he arose and rebuked the ^^ind and the sea/' — Mark 
iv., 39. 



Here in this seashore village was the temporary 
home of that Christ who for the most of his life was 
homeless. On the site of this village, now in ruins, 
and all around this lake, what scenes of kindness and 
power, and giory and pathos when our Lord lived here ! 
It has been the wish of my life — I cannot say the hope, 
for I never expected the privilege — to stand on the 
banks of Galilee. What a solemnity and what a rap- 
ture to be here I I can now understand the feeliug of 
the immortal Scotchman, Robert McClieyne, when sit- 
ting on the banks of this lake he wrote: 

It is not that the wild gazelle 

Comes down to drink thy tide, 
But He thac was pierced to save from hell, 

Oft wandered by tliy side. 
Graceful around thee the mountains meet, 

Thou calm reposing sea ; 
But ah I far more, the beautiful feet 

Of Jesus walived o'er thee. 

I can now easily understand from the contour of the 
country that bounds this lake that storms were easily 
tempted to make these Avaters their playground. From 
the gentle way this lake treated our boat when we 
sailed on it yesterday, one would have thought it in- 



78 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



capable of a paroxysm of rage, but it was quite differ- 
ent on both the occasions spoken of in my two texts. 
I close my eyes and the shore of Lake GaUlee, as it 
now is, with but little signs of human life, disappears, 
and there comes back to my vision the lake as it w^as 
in Christ's time. It lay in a scene of great luxuriance; 
the surrounding hills, terraced, sloped, grooved, so 
many hanging gardens of beauty. On the shore were 
castles, armed towers, Koman baths, everything 
attractive and beautiful ; all st^^les of vegetation in 
shorter space than in almost any other space in all 
the w^orld, from the palm tree of the forest to the trees 
of rigorous climate. 

It seemed as if the Lord had launched one wave of 
beauty on all the scene, and it hung and swung from 
rock and hill and oleander. Roman gentlemen in pleas- 
ure boats sailing this lake, and countrymen in fish 
smacks coming down to drop their nets, pass each 
other with nod and shout and laughter, or swinging 
idly at their moorings. O, what a beautiful scene ! 

It seems as if we shall have a quiet night. Not a 
leaf winked in the air ; not a ripple disturbed the^ face 
of Gennesaret ; but there seems to be a little excite- 
ment up the beach, and we hasten to see what it is, and 
we find it an embarkation. 

THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 

From the western shore a flotilla pushing out ; not a 
squadron, or deadly armament, nor clipper with val- 
uable merchandise, nor piratic vessels ready to destroy 
everything they could seize, but a flotilla, bearing mes- 
sengers of life, and light, and peace. Christ is in the 
back of the boat. His disciples are in a smaller boat. 
Jesus, weary wath much speaking to large multitudes, 
is put into somnolence by the rocking of the weaves. If 



PEACE, BE still! 



79 



there was any motion at all^ the ship was easily righted; 
if the wind passed from starboard to larboard, or from 
larboard to starboard, the boat would rock, and by the 
g-entleness of the motion putting- the Master asleep. 
And they extemporized a pillow made out of a fisher- 
man's coat. I think no sooner is Christ prostrate, and 
his head touches the pillow, than he is sound asleep. 
The breezes of the lake run their fingers through the 
locks of the worn sleeper, and the boat rises and falls 
like a sleeping child on the bosom of a sleeping mother. 

Calm night, starry night, beautiful night. Run up 
all the sails, ply all the oars, and let the large boat 
and the small boat glide over gentle Gennesaret. But 
the sailors say there is going to be a change of weather. 
And even the passengers can hear the moaning of the 
storm, as it comes on with great strides, and all the 
terrors of hurricane and darkness. The large boat 
trembles like a deer at bay among the clangor of the 
hounds ; great patches of foam are flung into the air ; 
the sails of the vessel loosen, and the sharp winds crack 
like pistols ; the smaller boats like petrels poise on the 
cliffs of the waves and then plunge. 

SAVED BY CHRIST. 

Overboard go cargo, tackling and masts, and the 
drenched disciples rush into the back part of the boat, 
and lay hold of Christ, and say unto him: Master, 
carest thou not that we perish ? That great person- 
age hfts his head from the pillow of the fisherman's 
coat, walks to the front of the vessel and looks out into 
the storm. All around him are the smaller boats, 
driven in the tempest, and through it comes the cry of 
drowning men. By the flash of the lightning I see the 
calm brow of Christ as the spray dropped from his 
beard. He has one word for the sky and another for 



so SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

the waves. Looking* upward he cries : Peace ! 
Looking* downward he says: Be still 

The waves fall flat on their faces^ the foam melts, 
the extinguished stars relight their torches. The 
tempest falls dead, and Christ stands with his feet on 
the neck of the storm. And while the sailors are bail- 
ing out the boats, and while they are trying to untangle 
the cordage, the disciples stand in amazement, now 
looking into the calm sea, then into the calm sky, then 
into the calm Saviour's countenance, and then cry 
out: ^^What manner of man is this, that even the 
winds and the sea obey him ? 

The subject, in the first place, impresses me with the 
fact that it is ver3^ important to have Christ in the ship, 
for all those boats would have gone to the bottom of 
Gennesaret if Christ had not been present. Oh, what 
a lesson for you and for me to learn ! We must always 
have Christ in the ship. Whatever voyage we under- 
take, into whatever enterprise we start, let us always 
have Christ in the ship. AH you can do, with utmost 
tension of body, mind and soul, you are boun!^ to do; 
but oh! have Christ in every enterprise, Christ in 
every voyage. 

THE NECESSITY OF GOD'S HELP. 

There are men who ask God's help at the beginning 
of great enterprises. He has been with them in the 
past ; no trouble can overthrow them ; the storms 
might come down from the top of Mount Hermon, and 
lash Gennesaret into foam and into agony, but it could 
not hurt them. But here is another man who starts 
out in worldly enterprise, and he depends upon the un- 
certainties of this life. He has no God to help him. 
After awhile the storm comes and tosses off the masts 
of the ship \ he puts out his lifeboat and the longboat; 



PEACE^ BE STILL ! 



81 



the sheriff and the auctioneer try to help him off ; they 
can't help hiin off ; he must go down — no Christ in the 
ship. Your life will be made up of sunshine and 
shadow. There may be in it Arctic blasts or tropical 
tornadoes ; I know not what is before you, but I know 
if you have Christ with you all shall be well. You 
may seem to get along without the religion of Christ 
while everything' goes smoothly, but after awhile, 
when sorrow hovers over the soul, when the waves of 
trial dash clear over the hurricane deck, and the decks 
are crowded with piratical disasters — oh, what would 
you do then without Christ in the ship ? Take God for 
your portion, God for your guide, God for your help ; 
then all is well ; all is well for time ; all shall be well 
forever. Blessed is that man who puts in the Lord 
his trust. He shall never be confounded. 

But my subject also impresses me with the fact that 
when people start to follow Christ they must not 
expect smooth sailing. 

THE TROUBLES OF THE APOSTLES. 

These disciples got into the small boats, and I have 
no doubt they said : What a beautiful day this is ! 
What a smooth sea I What a bright sky this is ! How 
delightful is sailing in this boat, and as for the waves 
under the keel of the boat, why they only make the 
motion of our little boat more delightful." But when 
the winds swept down, and the sea was tossed into 
Tvrath, then they found that following Christ was not 
smooth sailing. So you have found it ; so I have 
found it. Did you ever notice the end of the life of the 
apostles of Jesus Christ ? You would say, if ever 
men ought to have had a smooth life, a smooth de- 
parture, then those men, the disciples of Jesus Christ, 
ought to have had such a departure and such a li^^. 



82 



SERMONS ON THIl HOLY LAND. 



St. James lost his head. St. Philip was hung- to death 
on a pillar. St. Matthew had his life dashed out with 
a halbert. St. Mark was drag-ged to death through 
the streets. St. James the Less was beaten to death 
with a fuller's club. St. Thomas was struck through 
with a spear. They did not find ^ following Christ 
smooth sailing. Oh, how they were all tossed in the 
tempest ! John Huss in the fire, Hugh McKail in the 
hour of martyrdom, the Albigenses, the Waldenses, 
the Scotch Covenanters — did they find it smooth sail- 
ing? But vvhy go into history when we can draw 
from our own memory illustrations of the truth of 
what I say. Some young man in a store trying to 
serve God, while his employer scoffs at Christianity ; 
the young men in the same store antagonistic to the 
Christian religion^ teasing him, tormenting him about 
his religion, trying to get him mad. They succeed in 
getting him mad, saying, " You're a pretty Chris- 
tian." Does that young man find it smooth sailing- 
when he tries to follow Christ ? Or you remember a 
Christian girl. Her father despises the Christian re- 
ligion; her mother despises the Christian religion; 
her brothers and sisters scoff at the Christian religion ; 
she can hardly find a quiet place in which to say her 
prayers. Did she find it smooth sailing when she 
tried to follow Jesus Christ ? Oh, no ! All who would 
live the life of the Christian religion must suffer perse- 
cution ; if you do not find it in one way, you will get 
it in another way. The question was asked : Who 
are those nearest the throne ? "' And the answer came 
back: ''These are they who came up out of great 
tribulation — great flailing, as the original has it ; 
great flailing, great pounding — and had their robes 
washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." 
Oh, do not be disheartened ! Take courage. You are 



PEACE, BE STILL ! 



83 



in glorious companionship. God will see you through 
all trials and he will deliver you. My subject also 
impresses me with the fact that good people some- 
times get very much frightened. 

NO REAL CAUSE FOR FEAR. 

In the tones of these disciples, as they rushed into 
the back part of the boat, I find they are frightened 
almost to death. They say, Master, ca;rest thou 
not that we perish ? ^' They had no reason to be 
frightened, for Christ was in the boat. I suppose if 
we had been there we would have been just as much 
affrightened. Perhaps more. In all ages very good 
people got ver^^ much affrightened. It is often so in 
our day, and men say : ^^Why, look at the bad 
lectures ; look at the various errors going over the 
Church of God ; we are going to founder ; the Church is 
going to perish ; she is going down.'' Oh, how many 
good people are affrightened by iniquity in our day, 
and think the Church of Jesus Christ is going to be 
overthrown, and are just as much affrightened as were 
the disciples of my text. Don't worry, don't fret, as 
though iniquity were going to triumph over righteous- 
ness. A lion goes into a cavern to sleep. He lies 
down, with his shaggy mane covering the paws. 
Meanwhile the spiders spin a web across the mouth 
of the cavern and say, ^^We have captured him." 
Gossamer thread after gossamer thread, until the 
whole front of the cavern is covered with the spider's 
web, ancf the spiders say : The lion is done ; the lion 
is fast." After awhile the lion has got through sleep- 
ing : he rouses himself, he shakes his mane, he walks 
out into the sunlight ; he does not even know the 
spider's web is spun, and with his voice he shakes the 
mountain. So men come spinning their sophistries 



84 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



and skepticism about Jesus Christ : he seems to be 
sleeping". They say : " We have captured the Lord; 
he will never come forth again upon the nation ; 
Christ is captured forever. His religion will never 
make any conquest among men." But after awhile 
the Lion of the tribe of Judab will rouse himself and 
come forth to shake mightily the nations. What^s a 
spider's web to the aroused lion? Give truth and 
error a fair grapple and truth will come off victor. 

But there are a great many g-ood people who get 
affrightened in other respects; tliey are affrighted in 
our day about revivals. They say: Oh ! this is a 
strong religious gale. We are afraid the Church of 
God is going to be upset, and there are going to be a 
great many people brought into the church that are 
going to be of no use to it/' and they are affrighted 
when they see a revival taking hold of the churches. 
As though a ship captain, with five thousand 
bushels of wheat for a cargo, should say, some day, 
coming* upon deck : ^^Throw overboard all the cargo," 
and the sailors should say: ^^Why, captain, what do 
you mean? Throw overall the cargo?" ^^Oh," says 
the captafci, ^Sve have a peck of chaff that has got into 
this five thousand bushels of wheat, and the only way 
to get rid of the chaff is to throw all the wheat over- 
board." Now, that is a great deal wiser than the talk 
of a great many Christians who want to throw over- 
board all the thousands and tens of thousands of souls 
who are the subjects of revivals. Throw all overboard 
because they are brought into the kingdom of God 
through great revivals — because there is a peck of 
chaff, a quart of chaff, a pint of chaff' ! I say, let them 
stay until the last day; the Lord will divide the chaff 
from the wheat. Do not be afraid of a great revival. 
Oh, that such gales from heaven might sweep through 



PEACE, BE STILL ! 



85 



all our churches ! Oh, for such days as Richard Bax- 
ter saw in Eng'land, and Robert McCheyne saw in 
Dundee I Oh, for such da^^s as Jonathan Edwards 
saw in Northampton ! I have often heard my father 
tell of the fact that in the earl}" part of this century a 
revival broke out at Somerville, N. J., and some peo- 
ple were very much agitated about it. They said: *^0h, 
you are going* to bring- too many people into the 
church at once ;"and they sent down to New Bruns- 
wick to g'et John Livingston to stop the revival. Well, 
there was no better soul in all the world than John 
Livingston. He went and looked at the revival. They 
wanted him to stop it. He stood in the pulpit on the 
Sabbath and looked over the solemn auditory, and he 
said: ^'This, brethren, is in reality the work of God; 
beware how you try to stop it.^' And he was an old 
man, leaning heavily on his staff — a ver}^ old man. 
And he lifted that staff, and took hold of the small end 
of the staff, and began to let it fall slowly through be- 
tween the finger and the thumb, and he said: ^^Oh, 
thou impenitent, thou art falling now — falling from life, 
falling away from peace and heaven, falling as certainly 
as that cane is falling through my hand — falling cer- 
tainly, though perhaps falling slowly." And the cane 
kept on falling through John Livingston's hand. The 
religious emotion in the audience was overpowering, 
and men saw a type of their doom, as the cane kept 
falling, until the knob of the cane struck Mr. Livings- 
ton's hand, and he clasped it stoutly and said: But 
the grace of God can stop 3'ou as I stopped that cane,'' 
and then there was gladness all through the house at 
the fact of pardon and peace and salvation. ^^Well," 
said the people after the service, '^I guess you had 
better send Livingston home; he is making the revival 
worse." Oh^ for gales from heaven to sweep all the 



86 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



continents ! The dang*er of the Church of God is not in 
revivals. 

GOD AND MAN. 

Ag-ain, my subject impressed me with the fact that 
Jesus was God and man in the same being. Here he 
is in the back part of the boat. Oh^ how^ tired he looks ; 
what sad dreams he must have ! Look at his counten- 
ance ; he must be thinking- of the cross to come. Look 
at him, he is a man — bone of our bone, flesh of our 
flesh. Tired, he falls asleep ; he is a man. But then 
I find Christ at the prow of the boat ; I hear him say : 

Peace, be still ; " and I see the storm kneeling- at his 
feet, and the tempests folding their wings in his 
presence ; he is a God. 

If I have sorrow and trouble and want sympathy I 
g-o and kneel down at the back part of the boat and 
say: ^^Oh, Christ! weary one of Gennesaret, sym- 
pathize with all my sorrows, man of Nazareth, man 
of the cross. A man, a man. But if I want to con- 
quer my spiritual foes, if I want to get the victory 
over sin, death and hell, I come to the front of the 
boat, and I kneel down and I say : " Oh, Lord Jesus 
Christ, thou who dost hush the tempest, hush all my 
grief, hush all my temptation, hush all my sin ! A 
man, a man ; a God, a God. 

I learn once more from this subject that Christ can 
hush a tempest. 

It did seem as if everything must go to ruin. The 
disciples had given up the idea of managing the ship ; 
the crew were entirely demoralized ; yet Christ rises, 
and he puts his foot on the storm, and it crouches at 
his feet. Oh, yes, Christ can hush the tempest. You 
have had trouble. Perhaps it was the little child 
taken away from you — the sweetest child of the house- 
hold, the one who asked the most curious questions, 



PEACE, BE STILL ! 



87 



and stood around you with the greatest fondness, and 
the spade cut down through your bleeding heart. 
Perhaps it was an only son, and your heart has ever 
since been like a desolated castle, the owls of the night 
hooting among the fallen arches and crumbling stair- 
way's. Perhaps it was an aged mother. You always 
w^ent to her with your troubles. She was in your home 
to welcome your children into life, and when they died 
she was there to pity you ; that old hand will do jou no 
more kindness ; that white lock of hair you -put away 
in the casket or in the locket didn't look as it usually 
did when she brushed it away from her wrinkled brow 
in the home circle or in the country church. Or your 
property gone, you said : I have so much bank stock, 
I have so many government securities, I have so many 
houses, I have so many farms — all gone, all gone.'' 
Why, sir, all the storms that ever trampled with their 
thunders, all the shipwrecks, have not been worse 
than this to you. Yet you have not been completely 
overthrown. Why ? Christ says : I have that 
little one in my keeping. I can care for him as well as 
you can, better than you can, O, bereaved mother ! " 
Hushing the tempest. When your property went 
away, God said: There are treasures in heaven, in 
banks that never break." Jesus hushing the tem- 
pest. There is one storm into which we will all have 
to run. The moment wiien we let go of this world 
and try to take hold of the next, we will want all the 
grace possible. Yonder I see a Christian soul rockmg 
on the surges of death ; all the powers of darkness 
seem let out against that soul— the swirling wave, 
the thunder of the sky, the shriek of the wind, all 
seem to unite together ; but that soul is not troubled ; 
there is no sighing, there are no tears ; plenty of tears 
in the room at the departure, but he weeps no tears ; 



88 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



calm, satisfied and peaceful ; all is well. By the flash 
of the storm you see the harbor just ahead and you 
are making- for that harbor. All shall be well, Jesus 
being our guide. 

Into the harbor of heaven now we glide ; 

We're home at last, home at last. 
Softly we drift on the bright, silv'ry tide, 

We're home at last. 
Glory to God ! all dangers are o'er. 
We stand secure on the glorified shore ; 
Glory to God ! we will shout evermore. 

We're home at last. 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 



Thou has kept the good wine until now." — John ii., 10. 



Standing' not far off from the demolished town of 
what was once called Cana of Galilee I bethink myself 
of our Lord's first manhood miracle which has been the 
astonishment of the ag*es. My visit last week to that 
place makes vivid in my mind that beautiful occurrence 
in Christ's ministry. My text brings us to a wedding 
in that village. It is a wedding in common life, two 
plain people having pledged each other, hand and 
heart, and their friends having come iu for congrat- 
ulation. The joy is not the less because there is no 
pretension. In each other they find all the future they 
want. The daisy in the cup on the table may mean as 
much as a score of artistic garlands fresh from the 
hothouse. When a daughter goes ofi from home with 
nothing* but a plain father's blessing and a plain 
mother's love, she is missed as much as though she 
were a princess. It seems hard, after the parents have 
sheltered her for eighteen years, that in a few short 
months her affections should have been carried off by 
another; but mother remembers how it was in her own 
case when she was young, and so she braces up luitil 
the wedding has passed, and the banqueters are gone, 
and she has a good cry all alone. 

^•Well, we are to-day at the wedding in Cana of 
Galilee. Jesus and his mother have been invited. It 
is evident that there are more people there than were 
expected. Either some people have come who were not 



90 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



invited or more invitations have been sent out than it 
was supposed would be accepted. Of course, there is 
not enoug-h supply of wine. You know that there is 
nothing" more embarrassing* to a housekeeper than a 
scant supply. Jesus sees the embarrassment, and he 
comes up immediately to relieve it. He sees standing 
six water pots. He orders the servants to fill them 
with water, then waves his hand over the water, and 
immediately it is wine — real wine. Taste of it, and see 
for yourselves ; no log-wood in it, no strychnine in it, 
but first-rate wine. I will not now be diverted to the 
question so often discussed in my own country, whether 
it is right to drink wine. I am describing the scene as 
it was. When God makes wine, he makes the very 
best wine, and one hundred and thirty gallons of it 
standing around in these water pots; wine so good that 
the ruler of the feast tastes it and says : " Why, this 
is really better than anything we have had ! Thou 
hast kept the good wine until now.^' Beautiful mira- 
cle ! A prize was offered to the person who should 
write the best essay about the miracle in Cana. Long 
manuscripts were presented in the competition, but a 
poet won the prize by just this one line descriptive of 
the miracle : 

The unconscious water saw its God, and blushed. 

V^HAT THE MIRACLE TEACHES. 

We learn from this miracle, in the first place, that 
Christ has sympathy with housekeepers. You might 
have thought that Jesus would have said : ''I cannot 
be bothered with this household deficiency of wine. It 
is not for me. Lord of heaven and earth, to become 
caterer to this feast. I have vaster things than this to 
attend to." Not so said Jesus. The wine gave out^ 
and Jesus, by miraculous power, came to the re^sc:^*:. 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 



91 



Does there ever come a scant supply in your household? 
Have you to make a very close calculation ? Is it hard 
work for you to carr^^ on things decently and respec- 
tably. If so, don't sit down and cr^^. Don't go out 
and fret ; but go to him who stood in the house in Cana 
of Gallilee. Pray in the parlor ! Pray in the kitchen ! 
Let there be no room in all your house unconsecrated 
by the voice of prayer. If you have a microscope, put 
under it one drop of water, and see the insects floating 
about ; and when you see that God makes them, and 
cares for them, and feeds them, come to the conclusion 
that he will take care of you and feed you, oh, ye of 
little faith. 

A boy asked if he might sweep the snow from the 
steps of a house. The lady of the household said : 
^'Yes. You seem very poor.'' He says : I am very 
poor." She says : Don't you sometimes get dis- 
couraged, and feel that God is going to let you starve ? " 
The lad looked up in the woman's face and said : Do 
you think God will let me starve when I trust him, and 
then do the best I can ? " Enough theology for older 
people ! Trust in God and do the best you can. Amidst 
all the worriments of housekeeping go to him ; he will 
help you control your temper, and supervise your 
domestics, and entertain your guests, and manage your 
home economies. There are hundreds of women weak, 
and nervous, and exhausted with the cares of house- 
keeping. I commend you to the Lord Jesus Christ as 
the best adviser and the most efficient aid — the Lord 
Jesus who performed his first miracle to relieve a 
housekeeper. 

I learn also from this miracle that Christ does things 
in abundance. I think a small supply of wine would 
have made up for the deficiency. I think certainly 
they must have had enough for half of the guests. 



92 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



One gallon of wine will do; certainly five g-allons will 
be enough; certainly ten. But Jesus g'oes on^ and he 
gives them thirt3^ gallons^ and forty gallons, and fifty 
gallons, and seventy gallons, and one hundred gallons, 
and one hundred and thirty gallons of the very best 
wine. 

THE creator's GENEROSITY. 

It is just like him ! Doing ever thing on the largest 
and most generous scale. Does Christ, our creator, go 
forth to make leaves, he makes them by the whole forest 
full ; notched like the fern, or silvered like the aspen, 
or broad like the palm ; thickets in the tropics, Oregon 
forests. Does he go forth to make flowers, he makes 
plenty of them ; they flame from the hedge, they hang 
from the top of the grapevine in blossoms^ they roll in 
the blue wave of the violets, they toss their white surf 
into the spiraea — enough for every child's hand a flower, 
enough to make for every brow a chaplet, enough with 
beauty to cover up the ghastliness of all the graves. 
Does he go forth to create water, he pours it out, not 
by the cupful, but by a river full, a lake full, an ocean 
full, pouring it out until all the earth has enough to 
drink and enough with which to wash. 

Does Jesus, our Lord, provide redemption, it is not 
a little salvation for this one, a little for that, and a 
little for the other; but enough for all— Whosoever 
will, let him come." Each man an ocean full for him- 
self. Promises for the young, promises for the old, 
promises for the lowly, promises for the blind, for the 
halt, for the outcast, for the abandoned. Pardon for 
all, comfort for all, mercy for all, heaven for all ; not 
merely a cupful of Gospel supply, but one hundred and 
thirty gallons. Ay, the tears of godly repentance are 
all gathered up into God's bottle, and some day, stand- 
ing before the throne, we will lift our cup of delight 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 



93 



and ask that it be filled ^vitli the wine of heaven ; and 
Jesus, from that bottle of tears, will begin to pour in 
the cup, and we will cry : ^* Stop, Jesus, we do not want 
to drink our own tears ; and Jesus will say : Know 
ye not that the tears of earth are the Avine of heaven ? 
Sorrow ma}" endure but joy cometh in the morning. 

I remark further, Jesus does not shadow the joys of 
others with his own griefs. He might have sat down 
in that wedding and said : have so much trouble, 
so much poverty, so much persecution, and the cross 
is coming ; I shall not rejoice, and the gloom of my 
face and of my sorrows shall be cast over all this 
group. So said not Jesus. He said to himself : Here 
are two persons starting out in married life. Let it be 
a joyful occasion. I will hide my own griefs. I will 
kindle their joy.'" There are many not so wise as that. 
I know a household where there are many little chil- 
dren, where for two 3'ears the musical instrument has 
been kept shut because there has been trouble in the 
house. Alas for the folly! Parents saying: ^^We 
will have no Christmas tree this coming holiday be- 
cause there has been trouble in the house. Hush that 
laughing upstairs ! How can there be any joy when 
there has been so much trouble ? ^' And so they make 
everything consistenth^ doleful, and send their sons 
and daughters to ruin with the gloom they throw 
around them. 

Oh, my dear friends, do you know not those children 
will have trouble enough of their own after a wirile ? 
Be glad the^^ cannot appreciate all j^ours. Keep back 
the cup of bitterness from your daughter's lips. When 
your head is down in the grass of the tomb, poverty 
may come to her, betrayal to her, bereavement to her. 
Keep back the sorrows as long as you can. Do 3'ou 
not know that son ma^^, after a while, have his heart 



S4 SERMONS ON THE2 HOLY LAND. 

broken ? Stand between him and all harm. You may 
not fig-ht his battles long* ; fight them while you may. 
Throw not the chill of your own despondency over his 
soul ; rather be like Jesus, who came to the wedding 
hiding his own grief and kindling the joys of others. So 
I have seen the sun, on a dark day, struggling amidst 
the clouds, black, ragged and portentous, but after a 
while the sun, with golden pry, heaved back the black- 
ness, and the sun laughed to the lake, and the lake 
laughed to the sun, and from horizon to horizon, under 
the saffron sky, the water was all turned into wine. 

HE V^ANTS us TO BE COMFORTABLE. 

I learn from this miracle that Christ is not impatient 
with the luxuries of life. It was not necessary that 
they should have that wine. Hundreds of people have 
been married without any wine. We do not read that 
any of the other provisions fell short. When Christ 
made the wine it was not a necessity, but a positive 
luxury. I do not believe that he wants us to eat hard 
bread, and sleep on hard mattresses, unless we like 
them the best. I think, if circumstances will allow, 
we have a right to the luxuries of dress, the luxuries 
of diet, and the luxuries of residence. There is no 
more religion in an old coat than in a new one. We 
can serve God drawn by golden-plated harness as 
certainly as when we go afoot. Jesus Christ will 
dwell with us under a fine ceiling as well as under a 
thatched roof ; and when you get wine made out of 
water, drink as much of it as you can. 

What is the difference between a Chinese mud hovel 
and an American home ? What is the difference be- 
tween the rough bear skins of the Russian boor and 
the outfit of an American gentleman ? No difference, 
except that which the gospel of Christ, directly or in- 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 



95 



directly, has caused. When Christ shall have van- 
quished all the world, I suppose every house will be a 
mansion, and every garment a robe, and every horse 
an arched-necked coarser, and every carriage a glitter- 
ing vehicle, and every man a king, and every woman 
a queen, and the whole earth a paradise ; the glories 
of the natural world harmonizing with the glories of 
the material world, until the very bells of the horses 
shall jingle the praises of the Lord. 

I learn, further, from this miracle, that Christ has 
no impatience with festal joy, otherTv^ise he would not 
have accepted the invitation to that wedding He 
certainly would not have done that which increased the 
hilarity. There may have been many in that room who 
were happy; but there was not one of them that did so 
much for the joy of the wedding party as Christ him- 
self. He was the chief of the banqueters. When the 
wine gave out he supplied it; and so, I take it, he 
will not deny us the joys that are positively festal. 

I think the children of God have more right to laugh 
than any other people, and to clap their hands as 
loudly. There is not a single joy denied them that is 
given to any other people. Christianity does not clip 
the wings of the soul. Religion does not frost the 
flowers. What is Christianity? I take it to be, simply, 
a proclamation from the throne of God of emancipa- 
tion for all the enslaved ! and if a man accepts the 
terms of that proclamation, and becomes free, has 
he not a right to be merry ? Suppose a father has an 
elegant mansion and large grounds. To whom will he 
give the first privilege of these grounds ? Will he say : 

My children, you must not walk through these paths, 
or sit down under these trees, or pluck this fruit. 
These are for outsiders. They may walk in them.'^ 
iSTo father would say anything like that. He would 



96 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



say: " The first privileg-es in all the grounds, and all of 
my house, shall be for my own children/^ And yet 
men try to make us believe that God's children are on 
the limits, and the chief refreshments and enjoj^ments 
of life are for outsiders, and not for his own children. 
It is stark atheism ! There is no innocent beverage too 
rich for God's child to drink, there is no robe too 
costly for him to wear. There is no hilarity too great 
for him to indulge in, and no house too splendid for 
him to live in. He has a right to the joys of earth ; 
he shall have a right to the joys of heaven ! Though 
tribulation, and trial, and hardship may come unto 
him, let him rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord, ye rig-hte- 
ous, and again I say, rejoice." 

HE COMES IN THE HOUR OF EXTREMITY. 

I remark ag-ain that Christ comes to us in the hour 
of our extremity. He knew the wine was giving out 
before there was any embarrassment or mortification. 
Why did he not perform the miracle sooner ? Why 
wait until it was all gone, and no help could come from 
any source, and then come in and perform the miracle ? 
This is Christ's way; and when he did come in, at the 
hour of extremity, he made first-rate wine, so that 
they cried out : Thou hast kept the good wine until 
now." Jesus, in the hour of extremity ! He seems to 
prefer that hour. 

In a Christian home in Poland g-reat poverty had 
come, and on the week day the man was obliged to 
move out of the house with his whole family. That 
night he knelt with his family and prayed to God. 
While they were kneeling in prayer there was a tap on 
the window pane. They opened the window, and there 
was a raven that the family had fed and trained, and 
it had in its bill a ring all set with precious stones, 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST. 



97 



which was found out to be a ring* belonging- to the 
royal family. It was taken up to the king's residence, 
and for the honesty of the man in bringing it back he 
had a house given to him, and a garden, and a farm. 
Who was it that sent the raven tapping on the w^in- 
dow ? The same God that sent the raven to feed Eli- 
jah by the brook Cherith. Christ in the hour of ex- 
tremity ! 

You mourned OA'er your sins. You could not find 
the way out. You sat down and said : ^^God will not 
be merciful. He has cast me off ; " but in that, the 
darkest hour of your history, light broke from the 
throne, and Jesus said : O wanderer, come home. I 
have seen all thy sorrow^s. In this, the hour of thy 
extremity, I offer thee pardon and everlasting life ! " 

Trouble came. You were almost torn to pieces by 
that trouble. You braced yourself up against it. You 
said: I will be a Stoic and will not care ; " but before 
you had got through makings the resolution it broke 
down under you. You felt that all your resources 
were gone, and then Jesus came. "In the fourth 
watch of the night/^ the Bible says, Jesus came walk- 
ing on tha sea.'' Why did he not come in the first 
watch ? or in the second watch ? or in. the third watch ? 
I do not know. He came in the fourth, and g-ave de- 
liverance to his disciples. Jesus in the last extremity ! 

I wonder if it will be so in our very last extremity. 
We shall fall suddenl^^ sick, and doctors will come, but 
in vain. We will try the anodynes, and the stimu- 
lants, and the bathings, but all in vain. Something 
Avill say: ''You must g-o." No one to hold us back, 
but the hands of eternity stretched out to pull us on. 
What then? Jesus will come to us, and as we say: 
" Lord Jesus, I am afraid of that water, I cannot wade 
through to the other side," he will say: ^'Take hold of 



98 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



my arm ; " and we will take hold of his arm, and then 
he will put his foot in the surf of the wave, taking* us on 
down deeper, deeper, deeper, and our soul will cry: 
''All thy waves and billows have g-one over me." They 
cover the feet, come to the knee, pass the g-irdle, and 
come to the head, and our soul cries out: ''Lord 
Jesus Christ, I cannot hold thine arm any longer ! " 
Then Jesus will turn around, throw both his arms 
about us, and set us on the beach, far beyond the toss- 
ing of the billow. Jesus in the last extremity ! 

A GRANDER VTEDDING. 

That wedding scene is g-one now. The wedding ring 
has been lost, the tankards have been broken, the 
house is down ; but Jesus invites us to a grander wed- 
ding. You know the Bible says that the Church is the^ 
Lamb's wife ; and the Lord will after awhile come to 
fetch her home. There will be gleaming of torches in 
the sky, and the trumpets of God will ravish the air 
with their music ; and Jesus will stretch out his hand, 
and the Church, robed in white, will put aside her veil 
and look up into the face of her Lord the king, and the 
bridegroom will say to the bride : "Thou hast been 
faithful through all these years ! The mansion is 
ready ! Come home ! Thou art fair, my love ! " and 
then he shall put upon her brow the crown of dominion, 
and the table will be spread and it will reach across 
the skies, and the mighty ones of heaven will come in, 
garlanded with beauty and striking their cymbals ; and 
the bridegroom and bride will stand at the head of the 
table, and the banqueters, looking up, will wonder and 
admire, and say : " That is Jesus, the t)ridegroom ! 
But the scar on his brow is covered with the coronet, 
and the stab in his side is covered with a robe !*" and 



THE MARRIAGE FEAS*. 



That is the bride ! the weariness of her earthly woe 
lost in the flush of this wedding- triumph I " 

There will be wine enough at that wedding; not com- 
ing up from the poisoned vats of earth, but the vine- 
yards of God will press their ripest clusters, and the 
cups and the tankards will blush to the brim with the 
heavenly vintage, and then all the banqueters will 
drink standing. Esther having come up from the 
bacchanalian revelry of Ahasuerus, where a thousand 
lords feasted, will be there. And the queen of Sheba, 
from the banquet of Solomon, will be there. And the 
mother of Jesus, from the wedding in Cana, will be 
there. And they all will agree that the earthly feast- 
ing was poor compared with that. Then, lifting their 
chalices in that holy light, they shall cry to the lord 
of the feast : Thou has kept the good wine until 
now. 



CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE HOLY 

LAND. 



Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good 
will toward men." — Luke ii., 14. 



At last I have what I longed for, a Christmas eve 
in the Holy Land. This is the time of year that 
Christ landed. He was a December Christ. This is 
the chill air through which he descended. I look up 
through these Christmas skies and I see no loosened 
star hastening southward to halt above Bethlehem, 
but all the stars suggest the Star of Bethlehem. No 
more need that any of them run along the sky to point 
downward. In quietude they kneel at the feet of Him 
who, though once an exile, is now enthroned forever. 
Fresh up from Bethlehem, I am full of the scenes sug- 
gested by a visit to that village. You know that 
whole region of Bethlehem is famous in Bible story. 
There were the waving harvests of Boaz, in which 
Ruth gleaned for herself and weeeping Naomi. There 
David, the warrior, was thirsty, and three men of un- 
heard-of self-denial broke through the Philistine army 
to get him a drink. It was to that region that Joseph 
and Mary came to have their names enrolled in the 
census. That is what the Scripture means when it 
says they came to be taxed,'' for people did not in 
those days rush after the assessors of tax any more 
than they now do. 

The village inn was crowded with the strangers who 
had come up by the command of government to have 



CHRISTMAS EYE IN THE HOLY LAND. 



101 



their names in the census^ so that Joseph and Mary 
were obhged to lodge in the stables. You have seen ^ 
some of those large stone buildings, in the center of 
which the camels were kept, w^hile runnings out from 
this center in all directions there were rooms, in one of 
which Jesus Avas born. Had his parents been more 
showily appareled, I have no doubt they would have 
found more comfortable entertainment. That night 
in the fields the shepherds with crook and kindled fires 
were watching their flocks, when hark ! to the sound 
of Yoices strangely sweet. Can it be that the maidens 
of Bethlehem have come out to serenade the Aveary 
shepherds ? But now a light stoops upon them like 
the morning, so that the flocks arise, shaking their 
snowy fleece and bleating to their drowsy young. The 
heavens are filled with armies of light, and the earth 
quakes under the harmony, as, echoed back from cloud 
to cloud, it rings over the midnight hills : Glory to 
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to 
men." It seems that the crown of royalty and do- 
minion and power which Christ left behind him was 
hung on the sky in sight of Bethlehem. Who knows 
but that that crown may have been mistaken by the 
wise men for the star running and pointing down- 
ward ? 

PURITY IN POVEKTY. 

My subject, in the first place, impresses me with the 
fact that indigence is not always significant of degra- 
dation. When princes are born heralds announce it, 
and cannon thunder it, and flags wave it, and illumi- 
nations set cities on fire with the tidings. Some of us 
in England or America remember the time of rejoicing 
when the Prince of Wales Vv^as born. You can remem- 
ber the gladness throughout Christendom at the 
nativity in the palace at Madrid. But when our glori- 



102 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Oils Prince was born there was no rejoicing- on earth. 
Poor and g-rowing* poorer, yet the heavenly recognition 
that Christmas night shows the truth of the proposi- 
tion that indigence is not always significant of deg-ra- 
dation. 

In all ages there have been g-reat hearts throbbing 
under rag's, tender sympathies under rough exterior, 
gold in the quartz, Parian marble in the quarry, and 
in every stable of privation wonders of excellence that 
have been the joy of the heavenly host. All the great 
deliverers of literature and of nations were born in 
homes without affluence, and from their own privation 
learned to speak and fight for the oppressed. Many a 
man has held up his pine knot light from the wilder- 
ness until all nations and generations have seen it, and 
off of his hard crust of penury has broken the bread of 
knowledge and religion for the starving millions 
of the race. Poetry, and science, and literature, 
and commerce, and laws, and constitutions, and 
liberty, like Christ, were born in a manger. AH the 
great thoughts which have decided the destiny of 
nations started in obscure corners, and had Herods, 
who wanted to slay them, and Iscariots, who betrayed 
them, and rabbles that crucified them, and sepulchers 
that confined them until they burst forth in glorious 
resurrection. Strong character, like the rhododendron, 
is an Alpine plant that grows fastest in the storm. 
Men are like wheat, worth all the more for being 
flailed. Some of the most useful people would never 
have come to positions of usefulness had they not been 
ground and pounded and hammered in the foundry of 
disaster. When I see Moses coming up from . the ark 
of bulrushes to be the greatest law giver of the ages, 
and Amos from tending the herds to make Israel 
tremble with his prophecies, and David from the sheep 



CHRISTMAS EVE IX THE HOLY LAND. Iu3 



cote to sway the poet's pen and the king's scepter, 
and Peter from the fishing net to be tlie great preacher 
at the Pentecost, I find proof of the trutli of my prop- 
osition that indigence is not always significant of 
degradation. 

My subject also impresses me with the thought that 
it is while at our useful occupations that we have the 
divine manifestations. Had those shepherds gone that 
night into Bethlehem, and risked their flocks among 
the wolves, they would not have heard the song of the 
angels. In other words, that man sees most of God 
and heaven who minds his own business. We all have 
our posts of duty, and, standing there, God appears to 
us. We are all shepherds or shepherdesses, and we 
have our flocks of cares and annoyances and anxieties, 
and we must tend them. 

DILIGENT IX BUSINESS, FERVENT IN SPIRIT.'' 

We sometimes hear very good people say: '^If I 

had a month or a year or two to do nothing but attend 
to religious things, I wotdd be a great deal better than 
I am now.'' Ton are mistaken. Generally the best 
people are the busy people. Elisha v\'as plowing in the 
field when the prophetic mantle fell on him. Matthew 
was attending to his custom house duties when Christ 
commanded him to follow. James and John were 
mending their nets when Christ called them to be fish- 
ers of men. Had they been snoring in the sun Christ 
would not have called their mdolence into the apostle- 
ship. Gideon was at wo]^k with the flail on the thresh- 
ing floor when he saw an angel. Saul was with great 
fatigue hunting up the lost asses when he found the 
crown of Israel. The prodigal son would never have 
reformed and wanted to have returned to his father's 
bouse if he had not fl]^st gone into business, though it 



104 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. ^||| 

was swine feeding*. Not once out of a hundred times 
will a lazy man become a Christian. Those who have 
nothing to do are in very unfavorable circumstances for 
the receiving of divine manifestations. It is not when 
you are in idleness^ but Avhen you are like the Bethle- 
hem shepherds, watching your flocks, that the glory 
descends and there is joy among the angels of God over 
your soul penitent and forgiven. 

My subject also strikes at the delusion that the re- 
ligion of Christ is dolorous and grief infusing. The 
music that broke through the midnight heavens was 
not a dirge, but an anthem. It shook joy over the hills. 
It not only dropped upon the shepherds, but it sprang 
upward among the thrones. The robe of a Saviour's 
righteousness is not black. The Christian life is not 
made up of weeping and cross-bearing- and war° waging. 
Through the revelation of that Christmas night T find 
that religion is not a groan but a song. In a world of 
sin and sick bed and sepulchers, we must have trouble, 
but in the darkest night the heavens part with angelic 
song*. You ma}^, like Paul, be shipwrecked, but I ex- 
hort you to be of good cheer, for you shall all escape 
safe to the land. Religion does not show itself in the 
elongation of the face and the cut of the garb. The 
Pharisee who puts his religion into his phylactery has 
none left for his heart. Fretfulness and complaining 
do not belong to the family of Christian graces which 
move into the hea^rt when the devil moves out. Chris- 
tianity does not frown upon amusements and recrea- 
tions. It is, not a cynic, it is not a shrew, it chokes no 
laughter, it quenches no light, it defaces no art. 
Among the happy, it is the happiest. It is just as 
much at home on the playground as it is in the church. 
It is just as graceful in the charade as it is in the psalm 
book. It sing's just as well in Surrey gardens as it 



CHRISTMAS EVE IX THE HOLY LAXD. 



105 



pra^^s in St. Paul's. Christ died that we might hve. 
Christ walked that we might ride. Christ wept that 
we might laugh. 

Again, my subject impresses me with the fact that 
glorious endiugs sometim.es have very humble begin- 
nings. The straw pallet was the starting point, but 
the shout in the midnight sky revealed what would be 
the glorious consummation. Christ on Mary's lap, 
Christ on the throne of universal dominion — what an 
humble starting' I what a glorious ending I Grace be- 
gins on a small scale in the lieart. You see only men 
as trees walking. The grace of God in the heart is a 
feeble spark, and Christ has to keep both hands over 
it lest it be blovrn out. \Vhat an humble beginning! 
But look at that same man when he has entered 
heaven. No crown able to express his royalty. No 
palace able to express his wealth. No scepter able to 
express his power and dominion. Driiiking from the 
fountain that drips from the everlasting Rock. Among 
the harpers harping with their harps. On a sea of 
glass mingled with fire. Before the throne of God, to 
go no more out forever. The spark of grace, that 
Christ had to keep both hands over lest it come to ex- 
tinction, having flamed up into honor and glory and 
immortality. AVhat humble starting ! What glori- 
ous consummation 1 

''.AS A GRAIX OF MUSTARD SEED.'' 

The New Testament Church was on a small scale. 
Fishermen watched it. Agamst the uprising walls 
crashed infernal enginery. The woi^ld said anathema. 
Ten thousand people rejoiced at every seeming defeat, 
and said: ••' Aha I aha I so ^ve would have it.*' Mar- 
tyrs on fire cried: "How long. Lord, ho w long ? 
Very humble starting, but see the ditierence at the 



106 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



consummation, when Christ with his almighty arm has 
struck off the last chain of human bondage and Him- 
alaya shall be Mount Zion, and P^^renees, Moriah, and 
oceans the walking place of him who trod the wave 
cliffs of stormed Tiberias; and island shall call to 
island, sea to sea, continent to continent, and the song 
of the world^s redemption rising, the heavens like a 
great sounding board shall strike back the shout of 
salvation to the earth until it rebounds again to the 
throne of God, and all heaven rising on their thrones 
beat time with their scepters. Oh, what an humble 
beginning ! What a glorious ending ! Throne linked 
to a manger, heavenly mansions to a stable. 

My subject also impresses me with the effect of 
Christ's mission upward and downward. Glory to 
God, peace to man. When God sent his Son into the 
world angels discovered something new in God, some- 
thing they had never seen before. Not power, not 
wisdom, not love. They knew all that before. But 
when God sent his Son into this world then the angels 
saw the spirit of self-denial in God, the spirit of self- 
sacrifice in God. It is easier to love an angel on his 
throne than a thief on the cross, a seraph in his 
worship than an adulteress in her crime. When the 
angels saw God — the God who would not allow the 
most insignificant angel in heaven to be hurt — give up 
his Son, his Son, his only, only Son, they saw some- 
thing that they had never thought of before, and I do 
not wonder that when Christ started out on that pil- 
grimage the angels in heaven clapped their wings in 
triumph and called on all the hosts of heaven to help 
them celebrate it, and sang so loud that the Bethlehem 
shepherds heard it : Glory to God in the highest." 

But it was also to be a mission of peace to man. 
Infinite holiness— accumulated depravity. How eould. 



CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE HOLY LAND. lOT 



they ever come together ? The gospel bridges over 
the distance. It brings God to us. It takes us to 
God. God in us, and we in God. Atonement ! 
Atonement I Justice satisfied, sins forgiven, eternal 
life secured, heaven built on a manger. 

But it was also to be the pacification of all individ- 
ual and international animosities. What a sound this 
word of peace had in that Roman empire that boasted 
of the number of people it had massacred, that prided 
itself on the number of the slain, that rejoiced at the 
trembling provinces. Sicily, and Corsica, and Sar- 
dinia, and Macedonia, and Egypt had bowed to her 
sword and. crouched at the cry of her war eagles. She 
gave her chief honor to Scipio and Fabius and Caesar 
— all men of blood. What contempt they must have 
had there for the penniless, unarmed Christ in the 
garb of a Nazarene, starting out to conquer all 
nations. There never was a place on earth where 
that word peace sounded so offensively to the ears of 
the multitude as in the Roman empire. They did not 
vr^nt peace. The greatest music they ever heard was 
the clankling chains of their captives. If all the blood 
that has been shed in battle could be gathered together 
it would upbear a navy. The club that struck Abel to 
the earth has its echo in the butcheries of all ages. 
Edmund Burke, who gave no wild statistics, said that 
there had been spent in slaughter thirtj^-five thousand 
millions of dollars, or what would be equal to that ; 
but he had not seen into our times, when in our own 
day, in America, we expended three thousand millions 
of dollars in civil war. 

ARMIES OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

Oh, if we could now take our position on some high 
point and see the world's armies march past ! What 



108 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



a spectacle it would be ! There go the hosts of Israel 
through a score of Red Seas — one of water, the rest of 
blood. There go Cyrus and his army, with infuriate 
yell rejoicing over the fall of the gates of Babylon. 
There goes Alexander leading forth his hosts and con- | 
quermg all the world but himself, the earth reeling 
with the battle gash of Arbela and Persepolis. There 
goes Ferdinand Cortes, leaving his butchered enemies 
on the table lands once fragrant with vanilla and 
covered over with groves of flowering cacao. There 
goes the great Frenchman, leading his army down 
through Egypt, like one of its plagues, and up through 
Russia, like one of its own icy blasts. Yonder is the 
grave trench under the shadow of Sebastopol. There 
are the ruins of Delhi and Allahabad, and yonder are 
the inhuman Sepoys and the brave regiments under 
Havelock avenging the insulted flag of Britain ; while 
cut right through the heart of my native land is a 
trench in which there lie one million Northern and 
Southern dead. Oh, the tears ! Oh, the blood ! Oh, 
the long marches! Oh, the hospital wounds! Oh, 
the martyrdom ! Oh, the death ! But brighter than 
the light which flashed on all these swords and shields 
and musketry is the light that fell on Bethlehem, and 
louder than the bray of the trumpets, and the neighing 
of the chargers, and the crash of the walls, and the 
groaning of the dying armies, is the song that unrolls 
this moment from the sky, swept as though all the 
bells of heaven rung a jubilee: Peace on earth, good 
will toward men." Oh, when will the day come— God 
hasten it ! — when the swords shall be turned into plow- 
shares, and the fortresses shall be remodeled into 
churches, and the men of blood battling for renown 
shall become good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and the 



CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE HOLY LAND. 



109 



cannon now striking* down whole columns of death 
shall thunder the victories of the truth. 

MANY WILL BE SAVED. 

When we think of the whole world saved, we are apt 
to think of the few people that now inhabit it. Onl3^ a 
very few compared with the populations to come. And 
what a small part cultivated. Do jou know it has been 
authentically estimated that three-fourths of Europe 
is yet all barrenness, and- that nine hundred and ninety- 
one one-thousandth parts of the entire g-lobe is unculti- 
vated ? This is all to be cultivated, all inhabited and 
all gospelized. Oh, what tears of repentance when 
nations begin to weep ! Oh, what supplications when 
continents begin to pray ! Oh, what rejoicing w^hen 
hemispheres begin to sing ! Churches will worship on 
the places where this very hour smokes the blood of 
human sacrifice, and wandering through the snake-in- 
fested jungles of Africa, Christ's heel will bruise the 
serpent's head. Oh, wiien the trumpet of salvation 
shall be sounded everywhere and the nations are re- 
deemed, a light will fall upon every town brighter than 
that which fell upon Bethlehem, and more overwhelm- 
ing than the song that fell on the pasture fields where 
the flocks fed, there will be a song louder than the voice 
of the storm-lifted oceans, Glory to God in the high- 
est/^ and from all nations and kindred and people and 
tongues will come the response, And on earth peace, 
g'ood will toward men !" On this Christmas day I 
bring 3^ou good tidings of great joy. Pardon for all 
sin, comfort for all trouble, and life for the dead. Shall 
we now take this Christ into our hearts ? The time is 
passing. This is the closing of the j^ear. How the 
time speeds hy. Put your hand on your heart — one, 
two, three ; three times less it will beat. Life is passing 



110 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



like gazelles over the plain. Sorrows hover like petrels 
over the sea. Death swoops like a vulture from the 
mountains. Misery rolls up to our ears like waves. 
Heavenly songs fall to us like stars. 

I wish you a merry Christmas, not with worldly dis- 
sipations, but merry with Gospel gladness, merry with 
pardoned sin, merry with hope of reunion in the skies 
with all your loved ones who have preceded you. In 
that grandest and best sense a merry Christmas. 

And God grant that in our final moment we m^y 
have as bright a vision as did the dying girl when she 
said: Mother'^ — pointing with her thin white hand 
through the window — mother, what is that beautiful 
land out yonder beyond the mountains, the high moun- 
tains ? " Oh,'' said the mother, my darling, there 
are no mountains within sight of our home.'^ ^^ Oh, 
yes," she said, don't you see them — that beautiful 
land beyond the mountains out there, just bej^ond the 
high mountains ? " 

The mother looked down into the face of her dying 
child and said: ''My dear, I think that must be 
heaven that you see." ''Well, then," she said, 
"father, 3^ou come, and with your strong arms carry 
me over those mountains, into that beautiful land be- 
yond the high mountains." " No," said the weeping 
father, '^mj darling, I can't go with you." " Well," 
said she, clapping her hands, "never mind, never 
mind; I see yonder a shining One coming. He is 
comirg now, in his strong arms to carry me over the 
mountains to the beautiful land — over the mountains, 
over the high mountains ! " 



THE JOYFUL SURPRISE. 



Behold, the half was not told to me." — I Kings, x., 7. 



Appearing before you to-day, my mind yet agitated 
with the sceneiy of the Holy Land from which- we 
have just arrived, you will expect me to revert to 
some of the scenes once enacted there. Mark a circle 
around Lake Galilee, and another circle around Jeru- 
salem, and you describe the two regions in which 
cluster memories of more events than in any other two 
circles. Jerusalem was a spell of fascination that will 
hold me the rest of my life. Solomon had resolved 
that that city should be the center of all sacred, regal 
and commercial magnificence. He set himself to 
work and monopolized the surrounding desert as a 
highway for his caravans. He built the city of Pal- 
myra around one of the principal wells of the east, so 
that all the long trains of merchandise from the East 
were obliged to stop there, pay toll and leave part of 
their wealth in the hands of Solomon's merchants. 
He named the fortress Thapsacus, at the chief ford of 
the Euphrates, and put under guard everything that 
passed there. The three great products of Palestine 
— wine pressed from the richest clusters and cele- 
brated all the world over ; oil, which in that hot 
country is the entire substitute for butter and lard, 
and was pressed from the olive branches until every 
tree in the country became an oil well ; and honey, 
which was the entire substitute for sugar — these 
three great products of the country Solomon exported, 



112 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



and received in return fruits and precious woods and 
the animals of every clime. 

HOW "feOLOMON ENLARGED HIS KINGDOM. 

He went down to Ezion-g-eber and ordered a fleet of 
ships to be constructed, oversaw the workmen^ and 
watched the launching of the flotilla which was to go 
out on more than a year's voyage^ to bring home the 
. wealth of the then known world. He heard that the 
Egyptian horses were large and swif t^ and long maned 
and round limbed, and he resolved to purchase them, 
giving eighty-flve dollars apiece for them, putting the 
best of these horses in his own stall, and selling the 
surplus to foreign potentates at great profit. 

He heard that there was the best of timber on 
Mount Lebanon, and he sent out one hundred and 
eighty thousand men to hew down the forest and drag 
the timber through the mountain gorges, to construct 
it into rafts to be floated to Joppa, and from thence to 
be drawn by ox teams twenty-five miles across the 
land to Jerusalem. He heard that there w^ere beauti- 
ful flowers in other lands. He sent for them, planted 
them in his own gardens, and to this very day there 
are flowers found in the ruins of that city such as are 
to be found in no other part of Palestine, the lineal 
descendants of the very flowers that Solomon planted. 
He heard that in foreign groves there were birds of 
richest voice and luxuriant wing. He sent out people 
to catch them and bring them there, and he put them 
into his cages. 

Stand back now and see this long train of camels 
coming up to the king's gate, and the ox trains from 
Egypt, gold and silver and precious stones, and beasts 
of every hoof, and birds of every wing, and fish of 
every scale ! See the peacocks strut under the cedars. 



THE JOYFUL SURPRISE. 



113 



and the horsemen run, and chariots wheel ! Hark to 
the orchestra I Gaze upon the dance I Not stopping* 
to look into the wonders of the temple, step rigiit on 
to the causeway, and pass up to Solomon's palace ! 

Here we tind ourselves amid a collection of buildings 
on which the king had lavi-«liod the wealth of many 
empires. The genius of Hiram, the architect, and of 
the other artists is here seen in the long line of corri- 
dors and the suspended gallery and the approach to 
the throne. Traceried windovr opposite traceried win- 
dow. Bronzed ornaments burstmg into lotus and lily 
and pomegranate. Chapiters, surrounded by network 
of leaves, in which imitation fruit seemed suspended, as 
in hanging baskets. Three branches — so Josephus tells 
us — three branches sculptured on the marble, so thin 
and subtle that e^-en the leaves seemed to quiver. A 
laver, capable of holduig five hundred baia-els of water 
on six hundred brazen oxheads, which gushed with 
water and filled the whole place vrith coolness and 
crystalline brightness and musical plasli. Ten tables 
chased with chariot wheel and lion and cherubim. 
Solomon sat on a throne of ivory. At the seating 
place of the throne, on each end of the steps, a brazen 
lion. AViiy, my friends, in that place they trimmed 
their candles with snuffers of gold, and they cut their 
fruits with knives of gold, and they washed their faces 
in basins of gold, and they scooped out the ashes with 
shovels of gold, and they stirred the altar fires with 
tongs of gold. Gold reflected in the water ! Gold 
flashing from the apparel I Gold blazing ni the crown I 
Gold, gold, gold : 

Of course the news of the afiiuence of that place 
went out everywhere by every caravan and by wing of 
every ship, until soon the streets of Jerusalem are 
crowded with curiosity seekers. What is that long 



114 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



procession approaching Jerusalem ? I think from the 
pomp of it there must he royalty in the train. I smell 
the hreath of the spices which are brought as presents, 
and I hear the shout of the drivers, and I see the dust- 
covered caravan showing that they come from far 
away. Cry the news up to the palace. The queen of 
Sheha advances. Let all the people come out to see. 
Let the mighty men of the land come out on the palace 
corridors. Let Solomon come down the stairs of the 
palace before the queen has alighted. Shake out the 
cinnamon, and the saffron, and the calmus, and the 
frankincense, and pass it into the treasure house. Take 
up the diamonds until they glitter in the sun. 

SHE WOULD SEE FOR HERSELF. 

The queen of Slieba alights. She enters the palace. 
She washes at the bath. She sits down at the banquet. 
The cup bearers bow. The meat smokes. The music 
trembles in the dash of the waters from the molten 
sea. Then she rises from the banquet, and walks 
through the conservatories, and gazes on the architec- 
ture, and she asks Solomon many strange questions, 
and she learns about the religion of the Hebrews, and 
she then and there becomes a servant of the Lord God. 

She is overwhelmed. She begins to think that all the 
spices she brought, and all the precious woods which 
are intended to be turned into harps and psalteries and 
into railings for the causeway between the temple and 
the palace, and the one hundred and eighty thousand 
dollars in money — she begins to think that all these 
presents amount to nothing in such a place, and she is 
almost ashamed that she has brought them, and she 
says within herself : I heard a great deal about this 
place and about this wonderful religion of the Hebrews, 
but I find it far beyond my highest anticipations. I 



THE JOYFUL SURPRISE. 



116 



must add more than fifty per cent to what has been 
related. It exceeds everj^thmg that 1 could have ex- 
pected. The half — the half was not told me." 

Learn from this subject what a beautiful thing it is 
when social position and wealth surrender themselves 
to God. When religion comes to a neighborhood, the 
first to receive it are the women. Some men say it is 
because they are weakminded. I say it is because they 
have quicker perception of what is right, more ardent 
affection and capacity for sublimer emotion. After the 
women have received the gospel, then all the distressed 
and the poor of both sexes, those who have no friends, 
accept Jesus. Last of all come the greatly prospered. 
Alas, that it is so I 

If there are those who have been favored of fortune, 
or, as I might better put it, favored of God, surrender 
all 3'ou have and all you expect to be to the Lord who 
blessed this queen of Sheba. Certainly you are not 
ashamed to be found in this queen's compan3\ I am 
glad that Christ has had his imperial friends in all ages 
— Elizabeth Christina, queen of Prussia ; Maria Feodo- 
rovna, queen of Russia ; Marie, empress of France ; 
Helena, the imperial mother of Constantine ; Arcadia, 
from her great fortunes building public baths in Con- 
stantinople and toiling for the alleviation of the masses ; 
Queen Clotilda, leading her husband and three thou- 
sand of his armed warriors to Christian baptism : Eliza- 
beth, of Burgundy, giving her jeweled glove to a beg- 
gar, and scattering great fortunes among the dis- 
tressed: Prince Albert, singing ^' Rock of Ages " in 
AVindsor Castle, and Queen Victoria, incognita, reading 
the Scriptures to a dying pauper. 

I bless God that the day is coming when royalty 
will bring all its thrones, and music all its harmonies, 
and painting all its pictures, and sculpture all its 



116 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



statuary, and architecture all its pillars, and conquest 
all its scepters ; and the queens of the earth, in long 
line of advance, frankincense filling" the air, and the 
camels laden with gold, shall approach Jerusalem, 
and the gates shall be hoisted, and the great burden 
of splendor shall be lifted into the palace of this greater 
than Solomon. 

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN MUST BE SOUGHT. 

Again, my subject teaches me what is earnestness 
in the search of truth. Do you know where Sheba 
was ? It was in Abyssinia, or some say in the south- 
ern part of Arabia Felix. In either case, it was a 
great way from Jerusalem, To get from there to 
Jerusalem she had to cross a country infested with 
bandits, and go across blistering deserts. Why did 
not the queen of Sheba sta^^ at home and send a com- 
mittee to inquire about this new religion, and have the 
delegates report in regard to that religion and wealth 
of King Solomon ? She wanted to see for herself and 
hear for herself. She could not do this by work of com- 
mittee. She felt she had a soul worth ten thousand 
kingdoms like Sheba, and she wanted a robe richer 
than any woven by Oriental shuttles, and she wanted 
a crown set with the jewels of eternity. Bring out 
the camels ! Put on the spices ! Gather up the jewels 
of the throne and put them on the caravan ! Start 
now ! ISTo time to be lost ! Goad on the camels ! 
When I see that caravan, dust-covered, weary and 
exhausted, trudging on across the desert and among 
the bandits until it reaches Jerusalem, I say, " There 
IS an earnest seeker after the truth." 

But there are a great many who do not act in that 
way. They all want to get the truth, but they want 
the truth to come to them, ; they do not want to go to 



THE JOYFUL SURPRISE. 



117 



it. There are people who fold their arms and s^y : 
^^I am ready to become a Cliristian at any time ; if I 
am to be saved I sliall be saved, and if I am to be lost 
. I shall be lost." Bub Jerusalem will never come to 
you ; you must g^o to Jerusalem. The religion of our 
Lord Jesus Christ Avill not come to j^ou ; you must go 
^nd g-et religion. Bring* out the camels ; put on 
all the sweet spices, all the treasures of the heart's 
affection. Start for the throne. Go in and hear the 
waters of salvation dashing* in fountains all around 
about] the throne. Sit down at the banquet — the wane 
pressed from the grapes of the heavenh^ Eshcol, the 
angels of God the cupbearers. Goad on the camels. 
The Bible declares it : The queen of the south " — that 
is, this very woman I am speaking of — the queen of 
the south shall rise up in judgment against this gen- 
eration and condemn it ; for she came from the utter- 
most parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; 
and, behold ! a greater than Solomon is here." What 
infatuation, the sitting down in idleness expecting to 
be saved. Strive to enter in at the strait gate. 
Ask, and it shall be given unto you ; seek, and je shall 
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Take 
the kingdom of heaven by violence. Urge on the 
camels ! 

Again, my subject impresses me with the fact that 
religion is a surprise to anyone that gets it. This 
stor}^ of the new religion in Jerusalem, and of the glory 
of King Solomon, who was a type of Christ — that 
story rolled on and on, and was told by every traveler 
coming back from Jerusalem. The news goes on the 
wing of ever^^ ship and with every caravan, and you 
know a story enlarges as it is retold, and by the time 
that story gets down into the southern part of Arabia 
J^eliXj and the queen of Sheba hears it, it must be a 



118 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



tremendous storj^ And yet this queen declares in 
regard to it, although, she had heard so much and had 
her anticipations raised so high, the half — the half 
was not told her. 

THE convert's JOYFUL SURPRISE. 

So religion is always a surprise to anyone that gets 
it. The story of grace — an old story. Apostles 
preached it with rattle of chain ; martyrs declared it 
with arm of fire ; deathbeds have affirmed it with 
visions of glory, and ministers of religion have sounded 
it through the lanes, and the highways, and the 
chapels and cathedrals. It has been cut into stone 
with chisel, and spread on the canvas with pencil ; and 
it has been recited in the doxology of great congrega- 
tions. And yet when a man first comes to look on the 
palace of God's mercy, and to see the royalty of Christ, 
and the wealth of his banquet, and the luxuriance of 
his attendants, and the loveliness of his face, and the 
joy of his service, he exclaims with prayers, with tears, 
with sighs, with triumphs : ^^The half — the half was 
not told me ! " 

I appeal to those who are Christians. Compare the 
idea you had of the joy of the Christian life before you 
became a Christian, with the appreciation of that joy 
you have now since you have become a Christian, and 
you are willing to attest before angels and men that 
you never in the days of your spiritual bondage had 
any appreciation of what was to come. You are ready 
to-day to answer and say in regard to the discoveries 
you have made of the mwcy, and the grace, and the 
goodness of God : " The half— the half was not told 
me I " 

Well, we hear a great deal about the good time that 
is coming to this world, when it is to be girded with 



THE JOYFUL SURPRISE. 



119 



salvation. Holiness on the bells of the horses. The 
lion's mane patted by the hand of a babe. Ships of 
Tarshish bringing cai'goes for Jesus, and the hard, dry, 
barren, winter-bleached, storm-scarred, thunder-split 
rock breaking mto floods of bright Avater. Deserts 
into which dromedaries thrust their nostrils, because 
they were afraid of the simoon deserts blooming into 
carnation roses and silver-tipped lilies. 

It is the old story. Everybody tells it. Isaiah told 
it, John told it, Paul told it, Ezekiel told it. Luther 
told it, Calvin told it, John Milton told it — everybody 
tells it ; and yet— and yet when the midnight shall fly 
the hills, and Christ shall marshal his great army, and 
China, dashing her idols into the dust, shall hear the 
voice of God and Avheel into line ; and India, destroying 
her Juggernaut and snatching up her little children 
from the Ganges, shall hear the voice of God and 
wheel into line ; and vine-covered Italy and wheat- 
crowned Russia, and all the nations of the earth shall 
hear the voice of God and fall into line; then the 
ChuiTh, which has been toilmg and struggling through 
the centuries, robed and garlanded like a bride adorned 
for her husband, shall put aside her veil and look up 
into the face of her Lord the King and say : ''The 
half — the half was not told me.'' 

HEAVEN THE GREATEST SURPRISE. 

"Well, there is coming a greater surprise to every 
Christian— a greater surprise than anything I have 
depicted.. Heaven is an old story. Everybody talks 
about it. There is hardly a hymn in the hymn-book 
that does not refer to it. Children read about it in 
their Sabbath-school book. Aged men 'put on their 
spectacles to study it. We say it is a harbor from the 
storm. "We call it home. "We say it is the house of 



120 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



many mansions. We weave together all sweety beauti- 
ful, delicate, exhilarant words ; we weave them into 
letters, and then we spell it out in rose and lily and 
amaranth. And yet that place is going- to be a 
surprise to the most intelligent Christian. Like the 
Queen of Sheba, the report has come to us from the 
far country, and many of us have started. It is a 
desert march, but we urge on the camels. What 
though our feet be blistered with the way ? We are 
hastening to the palace. We take all our loves and 
hopes and Christian ambitions, as frankincense and 
myrrh and cassia, to the great King. We must not 
rest, we must not halt. The night is coming on, and 
it is not safe out here in the desert. Urge on the 
camels ! I see the domes against the sky, and the 
houses of Lebanon, and the temples and the gardens. 
See the fountains dance in the sun, and the gates flash 
as they open to let in the poor pilgrims. 

Send the word up to the palace that we are coming, 
and that we are weary of the march of the desert. 
The King will come out and say: Welcome to the 
palace ; bathe in these waters ; recline on these banks. 
Take this cinnamon and frankincense and myrrh, and 
put it upon a censer and swing it before the altar." 
And yet, my friends, when heaven bursts upon us, it 
will be a greater surprise than that — Jesus on the 
throne, and we made like him ! All our Christian 
friends surrounding us in glor}^ ! All our sorrows and 
tears and sins gone by forever ! The thousands of thou- 
sands; the one hundred and forty and four thousand ; 
the great multitudes that no man can number, will 
cry, world without end, '' The half — the half was not 
told me ! 



HOW A KING'S LIFE WAS SAVED. 



Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, 
took Joash the son of Ahaizah, and stole him from among the 
king's sons which were slain ; and they hid him, even him and 
his nurse, in the bed-chamber from Athaliah, so that he was not 
slain. And he was with her hid in the house of the Lord six 
years." — II Kings xi., 2, 3. 



Grandmother's are more lenient with their children's 
children than they were with their own. At forty years 
of age, if discipline be necessary, chastisement is used, 
but at seventj^, the grandmother, looking upon the 
misbehavior of the grandchild, is apologetic and dis- 
posed to substitute confectionery for whip. There is 
nothing more beautiful than this mellowing of old age 
toward childhood. Grandmother takes out her pocket 
handkerchief and wipes her spectacles and puts them 
on, and looks down into the face of her mischievous and 
rebellious descendant, and says: ^'I don't think he 
meant to do it ; let him off this time ; I'll be reponsible 
for his behavior in the future." My mother, with the 
second generation around her — a boisterous crew — said 
one day : ^'I suppose they ought to be disciplined, but 
I can't do it. Grandmothers are not fit to bring up 
grandchildren." But here, in my text, we have a 
grandmother of a different hue. 

I have within a few days been at Jerusalem, where ^ 
the occurrence of the text took place, and the whole 
scene came vividly before me while I was going over 
the site of the ancient temple and climbing the towers 
of the king's palace. H.ere in the text it is old Atha- 



122 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



liah, the queenly murderess. She ought to have been 
honorable. Her father was a king. Her husband was 
a king-. Her son was a king*. And yet we find her 
plotting for the extermination of the entire royal family^ 
including her own grandchildren. The executioners' 
knives are sharpened. The palace is red with the blood 
of princes and princesses. On all sides are shrieks, and 
hands thrown up, and struggle, and death groan. No 
mercy ! Kill ! Kill ! But while the ivory floors of the 
palace run with carnage, and the whole land is under 
the shadow of a great horror, a fleet-footed woman, a 
clergyman's wife, Jehosheba by name, stealthily ap- 
proaches the imperial nursery, seizes upon the grand- 
child that had somehow as yet escaped massacre, wraps 
it up tenderly but in haste, snuggles it against her, 
flies down the palace stairs, her heart in her throat lest 
she be discovered in this Christian abduction. Get her 
out of the way as quick as you can, for she carries a 
precious burden, even a young king. "With this youth- 
ful prize she presses into the room of the ancient tem- 
ple, the church of olden times, unwraps the young king- 
and puts him down, sound asleep as he is, and uncon- 
scious of the peril that has been threatened ; an^ there 
for six years he is secreted in that church apartment. 
Meanwhile old Athaliah sma^cks her lips with satisfac- 
tion, and thinks that all the royal family are dead. 

But the six years expire, and it is now time for 
young Joash to come forth and take the throne, and 
to push back into disgrace and death old Athaliah. 
The arrangements are all made for political revolution. 
The military come and take possession of the temple, 
swear loyalty to the boy, Joash, and stand around for 
his defense. See the shai^pened swords and the burn- 
ished shields ! Everything is ready. Now, Joash, 
half affrighted at the armed tramp of his defenders, 



HOAV A king's life WAS SAVED. 



1:>3 



scared at the vociferatiou of his admirers^ is brought 
forth in full reg'alia. The scroll of authority is put in 
his haud^ the coronet of government is put on liis 
brow, and the people clapped, and waved, and huzzalied, 
and trumpeted. ••'What is that?" said Athaliah. 
" What is that sound over in the temple ? And she 
flies to see, and on her wa^' they meet her and say : 
Why, haven't yow heard ? You thought you had 
slain all the royal family, but Joasli has come to light. ' ' 
Tlien the queenly murderess, frantic with rage, 
grabbed her mantle and tore it to tatters, and cried 
until she foamed at the mouth : *• You have no right 
to crown my grandson. You have no right to take 
the*government from my shoulders. Treason 1 Trea- 
son ! " While she stood there cryiug that, the mili- 
tary started for her arrest, and she took a short cut 
through a back door of the remple, and ran tlirougli 
the royal stables ; but the battle axes of the military 
fell on her in the barnyard, and for many a day, when 
the horses were being unloosed from the chariot, after 
drawing out young Joasli, the fiery steeds would snort 
and rear passing the place, as tliey smelt the place of 
the carnage. 

The first thought I liand you from tliis subject is 
that the extermination of.righteousness is an impossi- 
bility. When a woman is good, she is apt to be very 
good, and when she is bad, she is apt to be very bad, 
and this Athaliah was one of the latter sort. She 
would exterminate the last scion of the house of David, 
through whom Jesus was to come. There was plenty 
of work for embalmers and undertakers. She would 
clear the land of all God-fearing and God-loAing 
people. She would put an end to everything that 
could in anywise interfere with her imperial criminal- 
ity. She folds her hands and says : " The work is 



124 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



done ; it is completely done." Is it ? In the swaddling- 
clothes of that church apartment are wrapped the 
cause of God, and the cause of g'ood government. 
That is the scion of the house of David ; it is Joash, 
the Christian reformer ; it is Joash, the friend of God ; 
ii is Joash, the demolisher of Baalitisli idolatry. Rock 
him tenderly ; nurse him gently. Athaliah, 3^ou may 
kill all the other children, but you cannot kill him. 
Eternal defenses are thrown all around him, and this 
clergyman's wife, Jehosheba, will snatch him up from 
the palace nursery, and will run up and down with 
him into the house of the Lord, and there she will hide 
him for six years, and at the end of that time he will 
come forth for your dethronement and obliteration. 

Well, my friend, just as poor a botch does the world 
always make of extinguishing righteousness. Super- 
stition rises up and says : ^'I will just put an end to 
pure religion. " Domitian slew forty thousand Chris- 
tians, Diocletian slew eight liundred and forty-four 
thousand Christians. And the scythe of persecution 
has been swung through all the ages, and the flames 
hissed, and the guillotine chopped, and the Bastile 
groaned; but did the foes of Christianity exterminate 
it ? Did they exterminate Alban, the first British 
sacrifice ; or Zuinglius, the §wiss reformer ; or John 
Oldcastle, the Christian nobleman ; or Abdallah,- the 
Arabian martyr ; or Anne Askew, or Sanders, or 
Cranmer ? Great work of extermination they made 
of it. Just at the time when they thought they had 
slain all the royal family of Jesus, some Joash would 
spring up and out, and take the throne of power, and 
wield a very scepter of Christian dominion. 

Infidelity says : "I'll just exterminate the Bible,'' and 
the Scriptures were thrown into the street for the 
mob to trample on^ and they were piled up in the public 



HOW A king's life WAS SAVED". 



125 



squares and set on fire, and mountains of indignant 
contempt were hurled on them, and learned universi- 
ties decreed the Bihle out of existence. Thomas Paine 
said : " In mj ' Age of Reason ' I have annihilated the 
Scriptures. Your "Washiugton Js a pusillanimous 
Christian, hut I am the foe of Bihles and of churches." 
Oh, how many assaults upon that ^Vord ! All the 
hostilities that have ever heen created on earth are 
not to be compared with the hostilities against that 
one hook. Said one man in his infidel desperation, to 
his wife : You must not he reading that Bible,'' and 
he snatched it awa^^ from her. And though in that 
Bible was a lock of hair of the dead child — the only 
child that God had ever given them — he pitched the 
book with its contents into the fire, and stirred it with 
the tongs, and spat on it, and cursed it, and said : 
Susan, never have any more of that damnable stuff 
here I 

How many individual and organized attempts have 
been made to exterminate that Bible I Have they done 
it ? Have they exterminated the American Bible Soci- 
ety ? Have they exterminated the British and Foreign 
Bible Society ? Have they exterminated the thousand 
of Christian institutions, whose only object is to mul- 
tiply copies of the Scriptures, and throw them broad- 
cast around the world ? They have exterminated until 
instead of one or two copies of the Bible in our houses 
we have eight or ten, and we pile them up in the cor- 
ners of Sabbath-school rooms, and send great boxes of 
them everywhere. If they get on as well as they are 
now going on in the work of extermination, I do not 
know but that our children may live to see the millen- 
nium I Yea, if there should come a time of persecution 
in which all the knoAvn Bibles of the earth should be 
destroyed, all these lamps of light that blaze in our pu}. 



126 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



pits and in our families exting-uished — in the very day 
that infidelity and sin should be holding' a jubilee over 
the universal extinction, there would be in some closet 
of a backwoods church a secreted copy of the Bible, and 
this Joash of eternal literature would come out and 
come up and take the throne, and the Athaliah of in- 
fidelity and persecution would fly out the back door of 
the palace, and drop her miserable carcass under the 
hoofs of the horses of the king-'s stables. You cannot 
exterminate Christianity^ ! You cannot kill Joash. 

The second thoug-ht I hand you from my subject is 
that there are opportunities in which we may save roy- 
al life. You know that profane history is replete with 
stories of strangled monarchs and of jonug princes 
who have been put out of the way. Here is the story 
of a young* prince saved. How Jehosheba, the clerg-y- 
man's wife, must have trembled as she rushed into the 
imperial nursery and snatched up Joash. How she 
hushed him, lest by his cry he hinder the escape. Fl}^ 
with him! Jehosheba, you hold in your arms the 
cause of God and g-ood government. Fail, and he is 
slain. Succeed, and you turn the tide of the world's 
history in the rig-ht direction. It seems as if between 
the young king and his assassins there is nothing but 
the frail arm of a woman. But why should we spend 
our time in praising this bravery of expedition when 
God asks the same thing of you and me ? All around 
us are the imperiled children of a great King. 

They are born of Almighty parentage, and will come 
to a throne or a crown, if permitted. But sin, the old 
Athaliah, goes forth to the massacre. Murderous 
temptations are out for the assassination. Valens, the 
emperor, was told that there was somebody in his realm 
who would usurp his throne, and that the name of the 
man who should be the usurper would begin with the 



HOW A king's life WAS SAVED. 



127 



letters T. H. E. O. D. and the edict went forth from 
the emperor's throne: Kill everybody whose name 
begfins with T. H. E. O. D.*' And hundreds and thou- 
sands were slain, hoping by that massacre to put an 
end to that one usurper. But sin is more terrific 
in its denunciation. It matters not how you spell your 
name, 3'ou come under its knife, under its sword, under 
its doom, unless there be some omnipotent relief brought 
to the rescue. But, blessed be God, there is such a 
thmg as delivering a royal soul. Who will snatch 
away Joash? 

This afternoon, in your Sabbath-school class, there 
will be a prince of God — someone who may yet reign 
as king forever before the throne ; there will be some- 
one in your class who has a corrupt phj^sical inherit- 
ance ; there will be someone in your class who has a 
father and mother who do not know how to pray ; there 
will be someone in your class who is destined to com- 
mand in church or state — some Cromwell to dissolve a 
Parliament, some Beethoven to touch the world's harp- 
strings, some John Howard to pour fresh air into the 
lazaretto, some Florence Nightingale to bandage the 
battle Avounds, some Miss Dix to soothe the crazed brain, 
some John Frederick Oberlm to educate the besotted, 
some David Brainard to change the Indian's war-whoop 
to a Sabbath song, some John Wesley to marshal 
three-fourths of Christendom, some John Knox to make 
queens turn pale, some Joasli to demolish idolatry and 
strike for the kingdom of Heaven. 

There are sleeping in your cradles by night, there 
are playing in your nurseries by day, imperial souls 
waiting for dominion, and whichever side the cradle 
_they get out will decide the destiny of empires. For 
each one of these children sin and holiness contend— 
^thaliali on the one side and Jeho.sheba on the other. 



128 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



But I hear people say : " What's the use of bothering 
children with religious instruction ? Let them grow 
up and choose for themselves. Don't interfere with 
their volition." Suppose someone had said to Jehosh- 
eha : Don't interfere with that young Joash. Let 
him grow up and decide whether he likes the palace or 
not, whether he wants to he king or not. Don't dis- 
turb his vohtion." Jehosheba knew right well that 
unless that day the young king was rescued, he would 
never be rescued at all. 

1 tell you, my friends, the reason we don't reclaim 
all our children from worldliness is because we begin 
too late. Parents wait until their children lie before 
thej^ teach them the value of truth. They wait until 
their children swear before they teach them the impor- 
tance of righteous conversation. They wait until their 
children are all wrapped up in this world before they 
tell them of a better world. Too late with your pray- 
ers. Too late with your discipline. Too late with 
3^0 ur benediction. You put all care upon your chih 
dren between twelve and eighteen. Why do you not 
put the chief care between four and nine ? It is too 
late to repair a vessel . when it has got out of the 
dry docks. It is too late to save Joash after the ex- 
ecutioners have broken in. May God arm us all for 
this work of snatching royal souls from death to coro- 
nation. Can you imagine any sublimer work than 
this soul saviug ? That was what flushed Paul's 
cheek with enthusiasm ; that was what led Munson to 
risk his life among Bornesian cannibals ; that was * 
what sent Dr. Abeel to preach under the consuming 
skies of China ; that was what gave courage to Phocus 
in the third century. When the military officers came 
to put him to death for Christ's sake, he put them to 
bed that they might rest while he himself weiat out. 



HOW A king's life WAS SAVED. 



129 



and in his own garden dug his grave, and then came 
back and said : ^'l am readj^ ; " but they were shocked 
at the idea of taking the life of their host. He said : 

It is the will of God that I should die/' and he stood 
on the margin of his ow^i grave and they beheaded 
him. You say it is a mania, a foolhardiness, a fanat- 
icism. Rather would I call it a glorious self-abnega- 
tion, the thrill of eternal satisfaction, the plucking of 
Joash from death, and raising him to coronation. 

The third thought I hand to you. from my text is that 
the Church of God is a good hiding place. When 
Jehosheba rushes into the nursery of the king and 
picks up Joash, w^hat shall she do with him ? Shall 
she take him to some room in the palace ? No ; for the 
oflELcial desperadoes will hunt through every nook and 
corner of that building. Shall she take him to the 
residence of some wealthy citizen? No; the citizen 
Avould not dare to harbor the fugitive. But she has to 
take him somewhere. She hears the cry of the mob in 
the streets ; she hears the shriek of the dying nobilit}^ ; 
so she rushes wath Joash unto the room of the temple, 
into the house of God, and then she puts him down. 
She knows that Athaliah and her wicked assassins wall 
not bother the temple a great deal ; they are not apt 
to go very much to church, and so she sets down 
Joash in the temple. There he will be hearing the 
songs of the worshipers year after year ; there he wnll 
breathe the odor of the golden censers ; in that sacred 
spot he will tarry, secreted until the six years have 
passed, and he come to enthronement. 

Would God that we were as wise as Jehosheba, and 
knew that the Church of God is the best hiding place. 
Perhaps our parents took us there in early days ; they 
snatched us away from the world and hid us behind 
the baptismal fonts and amid the Bibles and psalm. 



130 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



books. Oh, glorious inclosure ! We have been 
breathing" the breath of the golden censers all the time, 
and we have seen the lamb on the altar and we have 
handled the phials which are the prayers of all saints, 
and we have dwelt under the wings of the cherubim. 
Gloriojis inclosure ! When my father and mother 
died, and the property was settled up, there was hardl^^ 
anything left ; but they endowed us with a property 
worth more than any earthly possession, because they 
hid us in the temple. And when days of temptation 
have come upon my soul I have gone there for shelter: 
and when assaulted of sorrows, I have gone there for 
comfort, and there I mean to live. I want, like Joash, 
to stay there until coronation. I mean to be buried 
out of the house of God. 

men of the world outside there, betrayed, carica- 
tured and cheated of the world, why do you not come 
in through the broad, wide open door of Christian 
communion ? I wish I could act the part of Jehosheba 
to-day, and steal you away from your perils and hide 
you in the temple. How few of us appreciate the fact 
that the Church of God is a hiding place. There are 
many people who put the church at so low a mark 
that they begrudge it everything, even the few dollars 
the}^ give toward it. They make no sacrifices. They 
dole a little out of their surplusage. They pay their 
butcher's bill, and they pay their doctor's bill, and 
they pay their landlord, and the}^ pay everybod^^ but 
the Lord, and they come in at the last to pay the Lord 
in His church, and frown as they sa^^ : There, Lord, it 
is ; if you will have it, take it— now take it, take it ; 
send me a receipt in full, and don't bother me soon 
again ! '^ 

1 tell you there is not more than one man put of a 



HOW A king's life WAS SATED. 131 

thousaiKl that appreciates what the church is. Where 
are the souls that put aside that one-tenth for Christian 
institutions — one-tenth of their income ? Where are 
those who, having put aside that one-tenth, draw upon 
it cheerfully ? Why. it is pull, and drag, and hold on, 
and grab, and clutch : and giving is an affliction to 
most people, when it ought to be an exhilaration and 
a rapture. Oh, that God would remodel our souls on 
this subject, and that we might appreciate the house 
of God as the great refuge. If your children are to 
come up to lives of virtue and happiness, they w,^]l 
come up under the shadow of the church. If the 
church does not get them the world Avill. 

Ah, when you pass away— and it will not be long be- 
fore 3'ou do — when you pass away it will be a satisfac- 
tion to see your children in Christian society. You 
want to have them sitting at the holy sacraments. 
You want them mingling in Christian associations. 
You would like to have them die in the sacred pre- 
cincts. When you are on your dying bed, and your 
little ones come up to take your last word, and you 
look into their bewildered faces, you will want to leave 
them under the church's benediction. I don't care how 
hard you are, that is so. I said to a man of the world : 

Your son and daughter are going to join our church 
next Sundaj'. Have you any objections ? Bless 
you," he said, ^'objections? I wish all my children 
belonged to the church. I don't attend to those mat- 
ters myself— I knovv' I am very wicked — but I am very 
glad they are going, and I shall be there to see them. 
I am very glad, sir; I am very glad. I want them 
there.'' And so, though you may have been wanderers 
from God, and though you may have sometimes cari- 
catured the Church of Jesus, it is your great desire 



132 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



that 3^our sons and daughters should be standing all 
then" lives within this sacred inclosure. 

More than that, you yourself will want the church 
for a hiding place when the mortgage is foreclosed ; 
wiien your daughter, just blooming into womanhood, 
suddenly clasps her hands in a slumber that know^s no 
waking ; when gaunt trouble walks through the par- 
lor, and the sitting room, and the dining hall, and 
the nursery, you will want some shelter from the tem- 
pest. Ah, some of you have been run upon by misfor- 
tune and trial ; w^hy do you not come into the shelter ? 
I said to a widowed mother after she had buried her 
only son — months after, I said to her : ^^How do you 
get along now-a-days ? " Oh," she replied, I get 
along tolerably well except when the sun shines." I 
said : " What do you me^in by that ? " when she said : 

I can't bear to see the sun shine ; my heart is so dark 
that all the brightness of the natural world seems a 
mockery to me." O darkened soul, O broken-hearted 
man, broken-hearted woman, why do you not come into 
the shelter ? I swing the door wide open. I swing it 
from wall to w^all. Come in ! Come in ! You want a 
place where your troubles shall be interpreted, where 
your burdens shall be unstrapped, where your tears 
shall be wiped sway. 

Church of God, be a hiding place to all these people. 
Give them a seat where they can rest their weary souls. 
Flash some light from your chandeliers upon their dark- 
ness. With some soothing hymn hush their griefs. 
O Church of God, gate of Heaven, let me go through 
it ! All other institutions are going to fail ; but the 
Church of God— its foundation is the Eock of Ages," 
its charter is for everlasting years, its kej^s are held 
by the universal proprietor, its dividend is Heaven, its 
president is God ! 



HOW A king's life WAS SAVED. 



133 



Snre as Th}^ truth shall last 

To Zion shall be given 
The brightest glories earth can yield, 

And brigliter bliss of Heaven." 

God grant that all this audience^ the ^^oungest, the 
eldest, the worst, the best, ma}^ find their safe and 
glorious hiding" place Avhere Joash found it — in the 
temple. 



THE PHILIPPIAN EARTHQUAKE. 



Jails are dark, dull, damp, loathsome places even 
now ; but they were worse in the apostolic times. I 
imagine, to-day, w^e are standing- in the Philippian dun- 
geon. Do you not feel the chill ? Do you not hear the 
groan of the incarcerated ones who for ten years have 
not seen the sunlight, and the deep sigh of women who 
remember their father's house and mourn over their 
wasted estates? Listen again. It is the cough of a 
consumptive, or the struggle of one in a nightmare of 
a great horror. You listen again, and hear a culprit, 
his chains rattling as he rolls over in his dreams, and 
you say : God pity the prisoner." But there is an- 
other sound in that prison. It is a song of joy and 
gladness. What a place to sing in ! The music comes 
winding through^ the corridors of the prison, and in all 
the dark wards the whisper is heard : What's that ? 
What's that ? " It is the song of Paul and Silas. They 
cannot sleep. They have been whipped, very badly 
whipped. The long gashes on their backs are bleeding 
yet. They lie flat on the cold ground, their feet fast in 
wooden sockets, and of course they cannot sleep. But 
they can sing. Jailer, what are you doing with these 
people ? Why have they been put here ? Oh, the^^ 
have been trying to make the world better. Is that 
all ? That is all. A pit for Joseph. A lion's cave for 
Daniel. A blazing furnace for Shadrach. Clubs for 
John Wesley. An anathema for Philip Melanchthon. 
A dungeon for Paul and Silas. 

But while we are standing in the gloom of that 



THE PHILIPPIAN EARTHQUAKE. 135 



Philippian dungeon, and we hear the mingling voices 
of sobs and groans, and blasphemy, and hallelujah, 
suddenly an earthquake ! The iron bars of the prison 
twist, the pillars crack oft', the solid masonry begins 
to heave and rock till all the doors swing open, and 
the walls fall with a terrible crash. The jailer, feeling 
himself responsible for these prisoners, and feeling 
suicide to be honorable — since Brutus killed himself, 
and Cato killed himself, and Cassius killed himself — 
put his sword to his own heart, proposing with one 
strong keen thrust to put an end to his excitement 
and agitation. But Paul cries out : " Stop ! stop ! 
Do thyself no harm. We are all here."" Then I see 
the jailer running through the dust and amid the 
ruin of that prison, and I see liim throwing himself 
down at the feet of these prisoners, crying out : 
" What shall I do? What shall I do Did Paul 
answer : " Get out of this place before there is an- 
other earthquake ; put handcuffs and hopples on these 
other prisoners, lest they get away " ? No word of 
that kind. Compact, thrilling, tremendous answer ; 
answer memorable all through earth and heaven ; 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christy and thou shalt be 
saved." 

Well, we have all read of the earthquake in Lisbon, 
in Lima, in Aleppo and in Caraccas ; but we live in a 
latitude where in all our memory there has not been 
one severe volcanic disturbance. And yet we have 
seen fifty earthquakes. Here is a man who has been 
building up a large fortune. His bid on the money 
market was * felt in all the cities. He thinks he has 
got bej^ond all annoying rivalries in trade, and he 
says to himself : " Now I am free and safe from all 
possible perturbation. But a national panic strikes 
the foundations of the commercial worlds and crash ! 



136 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



g'oes all that magnificent business establishment. He 
is a man who has built up a very beautiful home. His 
daughters have just come home from the seminary 
with diplomas of graduation. His sons have started 
in life, honest, temperate and pure. When the even- 
ing lights are struck, there is a happy and an un- 
broken family circle. But there has been an accident 
down at the beach. The young man ventured too far 
out in the ^urf . The telegraph hurled the terror up to 
the city. An earthquake struck under the founda- 
tions of that beautiful home. The piano closed ; the 
curtains dropped ; the laughter hushed. Crash ! go 
all those domestic hopes, and prospects, and expecta- 
tions. 

So, my friends, we have all felt the shaking down of 
some great trouble, and there was a time when w^e 
were as much excited as this man of the text,i^and we 
cried out as he did : What shall I do ? What shall 
I do ? " The same reply that the apostle made to him 
is appropriate to us: ^'Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved." There are some 
documents of so little importance that you do not care 
to put any more than your last name under them, or 
even your initials ; but there are some documents of so 
great importance that jou. write out j^our full name. 
So the Saviour in some parts of the Bible is called 
^^Lord," and in other parts of the Bible he is called 
Jesus," and in other parts of the Bible he is called 
Christ "; but that there might be no mistake about 
this passage, all three names come in together — the 
Lord Jesus Christ." Now, who is this Being that you 
want me to trust in and believe in? Men sometimes come 
to me with credentials and certificates of good charac- 
ter ; but I cannot trust them. There is some dishonesty 
in their looks tl>--t makes nae know T shall be cheated 



THE PHILIPPIAN EARTHQUAKE. 



137 



if I confide in them. You cannot put 3^our heart's 
confidence in a man until you know what stuff he is 
made of, and am I unreasonable this morning-, when I 
stop to ask you who this is that you want me to trust 
in ? No man would think of venturing* his life on a 
vessel going- out to sea that had never been inspected. 
No, you must have the certificate hung- amidships, 
telling howman}^ tons it carries, and how long- ag'o it 
was built, and who built it. And you cannot expect 
me to risk the carg-o of my immortal interests onboard 
any craft till you tell me what it is made of, and where 
it was made, and what it is. When, then, I ask you 
who this is you want me to trust in, you tell me he was 
a very attractive person. You tell me that the con- 
temporary writers describe him, and they give the 
color of his eyes, and the color of his hair, and they 
describe his whole appearance as being resplendent. 
Christ did not tell the little children to come to him. 

Suffer little children to come unto me" was not 
spoken to the children; it was spoken to the Pharisees. 
The children had come without any invitation. No 
sooner did Jesus appear than the little ones pitched 
from their mothers' arms, an avalanche of beauty 
and love, into his lap. " Suffer little children to come 
unto me." That was addressed to the Pharisees ; not 
to the children. 

Christ did not ask John to put his head dowm on his 
bosom ; John could not help but put his head there. 
Such eyes, such cheeks, such a chin, such l\air, such 
phj^sical condition and appearance — wh^^, it must have 
been completelj^ captivating and winsome. I suppose 
to look at him was just to love him. Oh ! how at- 
tractive his manner. Why, when the^^ saw Christ 
coming along the street, thej^ ran into their houses, 
and they wrapped up their invalids as quick as they 



138 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



could and brought them out that he might look at them. 
Oh ! there was something so pleasant, so inviting, so 
cheering in everything he did, in his very look. When 
these sick ones were brought out did he say : Take 
away these sores ; do not trouble me with these lepro- 
sies ? " No, no ; there was a kind look, there was a 
gentle word, there was a healing touch. They could 
not keep away from him. 

In addition to this softness of character, there was a 
fiery momentum. How the old hypocrites trembled 
before him. How the kings of the earth turned pale. 
Here is a plain man with a few sailors atliis back com- 
ing off the Sea of Galilee, going up to the palace of the 
Caesars, making that palace quake to the foundations, 
and uttering a word of mercy and kindness which 
throbs through all the earth, and through all the heav- 
ens, and through all the ages. Oh ! he was a loving 
Christ. But it was not effeminacy, or insipidity of 
character ; it was accompanied with majest^^, infinite 
and omnipoten b. Lest the world should not realize his 
earnestness, this Christ mounts the cross. You say : 

If Christ has to die, why not let him take some deadly 
potion and lie on a couch in some bright and beautiful 
home ? If he must die, let him expire amid all kindly 
attentions." No, the world must hear the hammers on 
the heads of the spikes. The world must listen to the 
death-rattle of the sufferer. The world must feel his 
warm blood dropping on each cheek, while it looks up 
into the face of his languish. And so the cross must be 
lifted, and the hole is dug on the top of Calvary. It 
must be dug three feet deep, and then the cross is laid 
on the ground, and the sufferer is stretched upon it, 
and the nails are pounded through nerve, and muscle, 
and bone, through the right hand, through the left 
hand : and then they shake his right hand to see if it is 



THE PHILIPPIAN EARTHQUAKE. 



139 



fast, and they shake his left foot to see if it is fast, and 
then they heave up the wood, half a dozen shoulders 
under the weight, and they put the end of the cross to 
the mouth of the hole, and they plunge it in, all the 
weight of his body coming down for the first time on 
the spikes; and while some hold the cross upright, 
ouxiers throw in the dirt and trample it down, and 
trample it hard. Oh, plant that tree well and thor- 
oughly, for it is to bear fruit such as no other tree ever 
bore, Why did Christ endure it ? 

He could have taken those rocks, and with them 
crushed his crucifiers. He could have reached up and 
grasped the sword of the omnipotent God and with 
one clean cut have tumbled them into perdition. But 
no, he was to die. He must die I His life for my life. 
His life for j^our life. In one of the European cities a 
young man died on the scaffold for the crime of mur- 
der. Some time after, the mother of this young man 
was dying, and the priest came in, and she made con- 
fession to the priest that she was the murderer, and 
not her son. In a moment of anger she had struck her 
husband a blow that slew him. The son came suddenly 
into the room, and was washing away the wounds and 
tr^^ing to resuscitate his father, when someone looked 
through the window and saw him, and supposed him 
to be the criminal. That A^oung man died for his 
own mother. You say, It was wonderful that he 
never exposed her." But I tell you of a grander 
thing. Christ, the Son of God, died not for his mother, 
not for his father, but for his sworn enemies. Oh, such 
a Christ as that — so loving, so self-sacrificing — can 
you not trust him ? 

I think there are many under the Spirit of God who 
are saying, I will trust him, if you will only tell me 
how ; " and the great question asked by thousands in 



140 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



this assemblage is, How? How?" And while I 
answer 3^our question I look up and utter the prayer 
which Rowland Hill so often uttered in the midst of 
his sermons, Master, help ! " How are you to trust 
in Christ ? Just as you trust anyone. You trust 
your partner in business with important things. If a 
commercial house gives you a note payable three 
months hence, you expect the paj^ment of that note at 
the end of three months. You have perfect confidence 
in their word and in their ability. You go home to- 
da3^ You expect there will be food on the table. 
You have confidence in that. Now, I ask you to have 
the same confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. He 
says: "You believe; I take away your sins ; " and 
the^^ are all taken away. What ! " you say, be- 
fore I pray any more ? Before I read my Bible any 
more ? Before I cry over my sins any more ? " Yes, 
this moment. Believe with all your heart and you 
are saved. Why, Christ is only waiting to get from 
5^ou what you give to scores of people every day ? 
What is that ? Confidence. If these people whom 
you trust daj^ by day are more worthy than Christ, if 
they are more faithful than Christ, if the^^ have done 
more than Christ ever did, then give them the prefer- 
ence ; but if you really think that Christ is as trust- 
worthy as they are, then deal with him as fairly.'' 
Oh,'^ says someone, in a light way, " I believe that 
Christ was born in Bethlehem, and I believe that he 
died on the cross." Do you believe it with your head 
or your heart ? I will illustrate the difference. You 
are in your own house. In the morning you open a 
newspaper, and you read how Captain Braveheart on 
the sea risked his life for tiie salvation of his passen- 
gers. You say : What a grand fellow he must have 
been ! His family deserves very well of the country." 



THE PHILIPPIAN EARTHQUAKE. 



141 



You fold tlie newspaper and sit down at the table^ and 
perhaps do not think of that incident again. That is 
historical faith. 

But now you are on the sea^ and it is night, and you 
are asleep, and are awakened hy the shriek of Fire ! " 
You rush out on the deck. You hear, amid the wring- 
ing of the hands and the fainting, the cries : No hope ! 
Ave are lost ! w^e are lost ! The sail puts out its wings 
of fire, the ropes make a burning ladder in the night 
heavens, the spirit of wreck hisses in the weaves, and 
on the hurricane deck shakes out its banner of smoke 
''and darkness. Down with the life-boats ! " cries the 
captain. ''Down with the life-boats ! " People rush 
into them. The boats are about full. Room only for 
one more man. You are standing on the deck beside 
the captain. Who shall it be ? You or the captain ? 
The captain sa^^s : You." You jump and are saved. 
He stands there and dies. Now, you believe that Cap- 
tain Braveheart sacrificed himself for his passengers, 
but you believe it with love, with tears, with hot and 
long-continued exclamations, with grief at his loss and 
with joy at your deliverance. That is saving faith. In 
other words, what you believe with all the heart, and 
believe in regard to ^^ourself. On this hinge turns my 
sermon ; a^-, the salvation of 3^our immortal soul. 

You often go across a bridge jou know nothing 
about. You do not know who built the bridge, you do 
not know what material it is made of ; but you come 
to it, and walk over it, and ask no questions. And 
here is an arched bridge blasted from the Rock of 
Ages," and built hj the architect of the whole uni- 
verse, spanning the dark gulf between sin and right- 
eousness, and all God asks you is to walk across it ; 
and you start, and you come to it, and 3^ou go a little 
way on and you stop, and you fall back and experi- 



142 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



ment. You say : How do I know that bridge will 
hold me ? instead of marching- on with firm step, ask- 
ing no questions, but feeling that the strength of the 
eternal God is under you. Oh, was there ever a prize 
offered so cheap as pardon and Heaven are offered to 
you ? For how much ? A million dollars ? It is cer- 
tainly worth more than that. But cheaper than that 
you can have it. Ten thousand dollars ? Less than 
that. Five thousand dollars ? Less than that. One 
dollar ? Less than tlfat. One farthing. Less than 
that — Without money aud without price. No money 
to pay. No journey to take. No penance to suffer. 
Only just on.e decisive action of the soul ; Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.'' 

Shall I try to tell you what it is to be saved ? I can- 
not tell you. No man, no angel can tell you. But I 
can hint at it. For my text brings me up to this 
point: ^*Thou shalt be saved." It means a happy 
life here, and a peaceful death and a blissful eternity. 
It is a grand thing to go to sleep at night, and to get 
up in the morning, and to do business all day feeling 
that all is right between my heart and God. No ac- 
cident, no sickness, no persecution, no peril, no sword 
can do me any permanent damage. I am a forgiven 
child of God, and he is bound to see me through. He 
has sworn he will see me through. The mountains 
may depart, the earth may burn, the light of the stars 
ma^^ be blown out by the blast of the judgment hurri- 
cane ; but life and death, things present and things to 
come, are mine. Yea, farther than that — it means a 
peaceful death. 

Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Dr. Young and 
almost all the poets have said handsome things about 
death. There is nothing beautiful about it. When 
we stand by the white and rigid features of those 



THE PHILIPPiAN EARTHQUAKE. 143 



whom we love, and tliey g'ive no answering pressure 
of the hand, and no returning kiss of the hp, we do not 
Avant anybod}^ poetizing around about us. Death is 
loathsomeness, and midnight, and the wringing of the 
heart until the tendrils snap and curl in the torture, 
unless Christ be with us. I confess to you to an 
infinite fear, a consuming horror, of death unless 
Christ shall be with me. I would rather go down into 
a cave of wild beasts or a jungle of reptiles than into 
the grave, unless Christ goes with me. Will jou tell 
me that I am to be carried out from mj bright home, 
and put away in the darkness ? I cannot bear dark- 
ness. At the first coming of the evening I must 
have the gas lit, and tjie further on in life I get, the 
more I like to have my friends around about me. 
And am I to be put off for thousands of years in a 
dark place, with no one to speak to ? When the holi- 
days come, and the gifts are distributed, shall I add 
no joy to the ^'Merrj^ Christmas," or the Happy 
New Year" ? Ah, do not point down to the hole in 
ground, t^ie grave, and call it a beautiful place ; un- 
less there be some supernatural illumination, I shud- 
der back from it. My wiiole nature revolts at it. But 
now this glorious lamp is lifted above the grave, and 
all the darkness is gone, and the way is clear. I look 
into it now without a single shudder. Now my 
anxiety is not about death : my anxiety is that I may 
live aright, for I know that if my life is consistent, 
when I come to the last hour, and this voice is silent, 
and these eyes are closed, and these hands with which 
I beg for your eternal salvation to-day, are folded over 
the still heart, that then I shall only begin to live. 
What power is there in anything to chill me in the 
last hour if Christ wraps around me the skirts of his 
own garment? What darkness can fall upon my 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



eyelids then, amid the heavenly daybreak? O death, 
I will not fear thee then ! Back to th}^ cavern of dark- 
ness, thou robber of all the earth. Fly, thou despoiler 
of families. With this battle-ax I hew thee in twain 
from helmet to sandal, the voice of Christ sounding- all 
over the earth, and through the heavens : O death, 
I will be thy plague. O grave, I will be thy destruc- 
tion." 

To be saved is to wake up in the presence of Christ. 
You know when Jesus was on the earth how happ3^ he 
made every house he went into, and when he brings 
us up to his house how great our glee ! His voice has 
more music in it than is to be heard in all the oratorios 
of eternity. Talk not about banks dashed wath efflo- 
rescence. Jesus is the chief bloom of Heaven. We shall 
see the very face that beamed sj^mpathy in Bethany, 
and take the very hand that dropped its blood from the 
short beam of the cross. Oh, I want to stand in 
eternity with Him. Toward that harbor I steer. To- 
ward that goal I run. I shall be satisfied when I 
awake in His likeness. Oh, broken-hearted igen and 
women, how sweet it will be in that good land to pour 
all your hardships, and bereavements, and losses into 
the loving- ear of Christ, and then have him explain 
why it was best for you to be sick, and why it w^as best 
for you to be widowed, and why it was best for you to 
be persecuted, and why it was best for you to be tried, 
and have him point to an elevation proportionate to 
your disquietude here, saying: '^You suffered with 
me on earth, come up now and be glorified with me in 
Heaven.'^ 

Someone went into a house where there had been a 
good deal of trouble, and said to the woman there : 

You seem to be lonely." Yes," she said, I am 
lonely." How many in the family ? " ^' Only my- 



THE PHILIPPIAN EARTHQUAKE. 



145 



self.*' Have 3'ou had any children ? " I had seven 
children." " Where are they ? " Gone. ' ' * ' All 
gone?'' '^All.''' "All deadV" -'All.'' Then she 
breathed a lon^ sigh into the loneliness, and said : 
Oh, sir, I have been a good mother to the grave." 
And so there are hearts here that are utterly broken 
down by the bereavements of life. I point you to-day 
to the eternal balm of Heaven. Are there any here 
that I am missing this morning ? Oh, you poor wait- 
ing maid I your heart's sorrow poured in no human 
ear, loneh' and sad ! how glad you will be when Christ 
shall disband all your sorrows and crown you queen 
unto God and the Lamb forever I Oh, aged men and 
women, fed by his love and warmed by his grace for 
three score years and ten ! Vvlll not your decrepitude 
change for the leap of a hart when you come to look 
face to face upon Him whom, having not seen, you 
love ? Oh, that will be the Good Shepherd, not out in 
the night and watching to keep off the wolves, but 
with the lambs reclining on the sun-lit hill. That will 
be the Captain of our salvation, not amid the roar, and 
crash, and boom of battle, but amid the disbanded 
troops keeping victorious festivity. That will be the 
Bridegroom of the Church coming from afar, the bride 
leaning upon His arm while He looks- down into her 
face and says: ''Behold, thou art fair, my love! 
Behold, thou art faii\" 



WHAT IS IN A NAME? 



*' A name which is above every name." — Philippians xi., 2. 



On my way from the Holy Land^ and while I wait 
for the steamer to resume her vo^^age to America, I 
preach to you from this text, which was one of Paul's 
rapturous and enthusiastic descriptions of the name of 
Jesus. By common proverb we have come to believe 
that there is nothing* in a name, and so parents some- 
times present their children for baptism regardless of 
the title given them, and not thinking that that par- 
ticular title will be either a hindrance or a help. 
Strange mistake. You have no right to give to 3^our 
child a name that is lacking either in euphony or in 
moral meaning. It is a sin for you to call your child 
Jehoiakim or Tiglath-Pileser. Because you yourself 
may have an exasperating name is no reason why yon 
should give it to those who come after you. But how 
often we have seen some name, filled with jargon, rat- 
tling down from generation to generation, simply be- 
cause someone a long while ago happened to be afflict- 
ed with it. Institutions and enterprises have some- 
times without sufficient deliberation taken their no- 
menclature. Mighty destinies have been decided by 
the significance of a name. There are men who all 
their life long toil and tussle to get over the influence 
of some unfortunate name. While we may, through 
right behavior and Christian demeanor, outlive the 
fact that we were baptized by the name of a despot, or 
an inflde], or a cheat, how much better it would have 



WHAT IS IX A NAME ? 



147 



been if we all could have started life without any such 
incumbrance. When I find the apostle, in my text and 
in other parts of his writing, breaking out in ascrip- 
tions of admiration in regard to the name of Jesus, I 
want to inquire what a]^e some of the characteristics of 
that appellation. And oh that the Saviour himself, 
while I speak, might fill me Avith his own presence, for 
we never can tell to others that Avhicli we have not our-t 
selves felt. 

First, this name of Jesus is an easy name. Some- 
times we are introduced to people whose name is so 
long and unpronounceable that we have sharply to 
listen, and to hear the name given to us two or three 
times, before we venture to speak it. But within the 
first two years the little child clasps its hands, and 
looks np, and says ^" Jesus/' Can it be, amid all the 
families represented here to day there is one household 
where the little ones speak of ••father,"' and ''mother/'^ 
and brother,'* and ••'sister."' and not of '-the Xame 
which is above every name'"? Sometimes Ave forget 
the titles of our very best friends, and we have to 
IDause and think before we can recall the name. But 
can you imagine any freak of intellect in which you 
could forget the Saviour's designation? That word 
^* Jesus" seems to fit the tongue in every dialect. 
When the voice in old age gets feeble and tremulous, 
and indistinct, still this regal word has potent utter- 
ance, i 

Jesus, I love Thy charming name, 
'Tis music to my ear ; 

Fain would I sound it out so loud 
That Heaven and eartli might hear. 

Still further, I remark it is a beautiful name. You 
have noticed that it is impossible to dissociate a name 
from the person who has the name. So there are names 



148 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



that are to me repulsive — I do not want to hear them 
at all— while those very names are attractive to you. 
Why the difference ? It is because I happen to know 
persons by those names who are cross^ and sour, and 
snappish, and queer, while the persons you used to 
know by those names were pleasant and attractive. 
As we cannot dissociate a name from the person who 
holds the name, that consideration makes Christ's 
name so unspeakably beautiful. No sooner is it pro- 
nounced in your presence than you think of Bethlehem, 
and Gethsemane, and Golgotha, and you see the loving 
face, and hear the tender voice, and feel the gentle 
touch. You see Jesus, the One who, though banquet- 
ing with heavenly hierarchs, came down to breakfast 
on the fish that rough men -had just hauled out of 
Gennesaret ; Jesus, the One who, though the clouds 
are the dust of his feet, walked footsore on the road 
to Emmaus. Just as soon as that name is pronounced 
in your presence jou think of how the shining One 
gave back the centurion's daughter, and how he helped 
the blind man to the sunlight, and how he made the 
cripple's crutches useless, and how he looked down 
into the babe's laughing eyes, and, as the little one 
struggled to go to him, flung out his arms around it 
and impressed a loving kiss on its brow, and said : 

Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 

Beautiful name— Jesus ! It stands for love, for 
patience, for kindness, for forbearance, for self-sacrifice, 
for magnanimitj^ It is aromatic with all odors and 
accordant with all harmonies. Sometimes I see that 
name, and the letters seem to be made out of tears, 
and then again the^^ look like gleaming crowns. Some- 
times the3^ seem to me as though twisted out of the 
straw on which He la^^, and then as though built out 
of the thrones on which His people shall reign, Soine- 



WHAT IS IN A NAME ? 



149 



times I sound that word Jesus/' and I hear coming 
through the two s^^llables the sigh of Gethsemane and 
the groan of Calvary ; and again I sound it, and it is 
all a-ripple with gladness and a-ring with hosanna. 
Take all the glories of bookbindery and put them 
around the page where that name is printed. On 
Christmas mornings wreathe it on the wall. 

Let it drip from harp's strings and thunder out in 
organ's diapason. Sound it often^ sound it well, until 
every star shall seem to shine it, and every flower shall 
seem to breathe it, and mountain and sea, and day and 
night, and earth and Heaven acclaim in full chant : 
^'Blessed be His glorious name forever. The name 
that is above every name." 

Jesus, the name high over all, 
In Heaven and earth and sky. 

To the repenting soul, to the exhausted invahd, to 
the Sunday-school girl, to the snow-white octogenarian, 
it is beautiful. The old man comes in from a long walk, 
and tremblingly opens the door, and hangs his hat on 
the old nail, and sets his cane in the usual corner, and 
lies down on a couch, and says to .lis children and 
grandchildren : " lAj dears, I am going to leave you.'' 
They say : ' ^ Why, where are you going, grandfather ?" 
" I am going to Jesus." And so the old man faints 
away into Heaven. The little child comes in from 
play and throws herself on your lap, and says: 
'/Mamma, I am so sick, so sick." And you put her to 
bed, and the fever is worse and worse, until in some 
midnight she looks up into your face and saj^s : 

Mamma, kiss me goodby ; I am going awaj" from 
you." And you say : "^'My dear, where are you going 
to ? " And she sa^^s : I am going to Jesus." And 
the red cheek which you thought was the mark of the 



150 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



fever, only turns out to be the carnation bloom of 
Heaven ! Oh, yes ; it is a sweet name spoken by the 
lips of childhood, spoken by the old man. 

Still further : it is a mighty name. Rothschild is a 
potent name in the commercial world, Cuvier in the 
scientific world, Irving a powerful name in the iiterar^^ 
world, Washington an influential name in the political 
world, Wellington a mighty name in the military 
world ; but tell me any name in all fche earth so potent 
to awe, and lift, and thrill, and rouse, and agitate, 
and bless, as this name of Jesus. That one word un- 
horsed Saul, and flung Newton on his face on ship's 
deck, and to-day holds 400,000,000 of the race with 
omnipotent spell. That name in England to-day 
means more than Victoria ; in Germany, means more 
than Emperor William ; in France, means more than 
Carnot ; in Italy, means more than Humbert of the 
present or Garibald'i of the past. I have seen a man 
bound hand and foot in sin, Satan his hard taskmaster, 
in a bondage from which no human power could de- 
liver him, and yet at the pronunciation of that one 
word he dashed down his chains and marched out for- 
ever free. I have seen a man overwhelmed with 
disaster, the last hope fled, the last light gone out ; 
that name pronounced in his hearing, the sea dropped, 
the clouds scattered, and a sunburst of eternal glad- 
ness poured into his soul. I have seen a man hardened 
in infidelity, defiant of God, full of scofl" and jeer, 
jocose of the judgment, reckless of an unending eter- 
nity, at the mere pronunciation of that name blanch, 
cower, and quake, and pray, and sob, and groan, and 
believe, and rejoice. Oh, it is a mighty name ! At its 
utterance the last wall of sin will fall, the last temple 
of superstition crumble, the last Juggernaut of cruelty 
crash to pieces. That name will first make all the 



WHAT IS IN A NAME? 



151 



earth tremble, and then it will make all the nations 
sing*. It is to be the password at every gate of honor, 
the insig^nia on ever^' flag, the battle shout in every 
conflict. All the milUons of the earth are to know it. 
The red horse of carnage seen in Apocalyptic vision, 
and the black horse of death, are to fall back on their 
haunches, and the white horse of victor^^ will g'o forth, 
mounted by Him who hath the moon under his feet, 
and the stars of heaven for His tiara. Other dommions 
seem to be giving out ; this seems to be enlarging-. 
Spain has had to give up much of its dominion. Aus- 
tria has been wonderfully depleted in power. France 
has iiad to surrender some of her favorite provinces. 
Most of the thrones of the world are being lowered, 
and most of the scepters of the world are being short- 
ened : but ever}' Bible printed, every tract distributed, 
every Sunday-school class taught, every school 
founded, eveiy church established, is extending the 
power of Christ's name. That name has already been 
spoken under the Chinese wail, and a Siberian snow 
castle, in Brazilian grove and in Easte^^n pagoda. 
That name is to swallow up all other names. That 
crown is to cover up all other crowns. That empire is 
to absorb all other dommatioDS : 

All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail, 
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale ; 
Peace o'er the world her olive-wand extend, 
And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend. 

Still further : it is an enduring name. You clamber 
over the fence of the graveyard and pull aside the 
weeds, and you see the faded inscription on the tomb- 
stone. That was the name of a man who once ruled 
all that town. The mightiest names of the world have 
perished or are perishing. Gregory VL, Sancho of 
Spain, Conrad I. of Germany, Richard I. of England, 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Louis XVI. of France, Catharine of Russia — mighty 
names once, that made the world tremble ; but now, 
none so poor as to do them reverence, and to the great 
mass of the people they mean absolutely nothing — they 
never heard of them. But the name of Christ is to 
endure forever. It will be perpetuated in art ; for 
there will be other Bellinis to depict the Madonna ; 
there will be other Ghirlandajos to represent Christ's 
baptism ; there will be other Bronzinos to show us 
Christ's visiting the spirits in prison ; other Giottos to 
appall our sight with the crucifixion. The name will 
be preserved in song, for there will be other Alexander 
Popes to write the "Messiah/' other Dr. Youngs to 
portray His triumphs, other Cowpers to sing His love. 
It will be preserved in costly and magnificent archi- 
tecture, for Protestantism as well as Catholicism is 
yet to have its St. Marks and its St. Peters. That 
name will be preserved in the literature of the w^orld, 
for already it is embalmed in the best books ; and there 
will be other Dr. Paleys to write the Evidences of 
, Christianity^,':' and other Richard Baxters to describe 
the Saviour's coming to judgment. But above all, and 
more than all, that name will be embalmed in the 
memory of all the good of earth and all the great ones 
of Heaven. Will the delivered bondman of earth ever 
forget who freed him ? Will the blind man of earth 
forget who gave him sight ? Will the outcast of earth 
forget who brought him home ? No ! No ! 

To destroy the memory of that name of Christ, you 
would have to burn up all the Bibles and all the 
churches on earth, and then in a spirit of universal 
arson go through the gate of Heaven, and put a torch 
to the temples and the towers and the palaces, and 
after all that city was wrapped in awful conflagration, 
and the citizens came out and gazed on the ruin — 



WHAT IS IN A NAME ? 



even then they would hear that name in the thunder 
of faUing- tower and the crash of crumWing wall, and 
see it inwrought in the flying banners of flame, and the 
redeemed of the Lord on high would be happy 3^et and 
cry out : Let the palaces and the temples burn ; we 
have Jesus left! " Blessed be his glorious name 
for ever and ever. The name that is above every 
name.'' 

Have you ever made up your mind by what name 
3^ou will call Christ when you meet him in Heaven ? 
You know he has many names. Will you call him 
Jesus, or the Anointed One, or the Messiah, or will 
you take some of the s^'mbolical names which on 
earth 3^ou learned from your Bible ? 

Wandering some day in the garden of God on high, 
the place a-bloom with eternal springtide, infinite 
luxuriances of rose, and lily, and amaranth, you may 
look up into His face and say : My Lord, thou art 
th^ rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley." 

Some day, as a soul comes up from earth to take its 
place in the firmament, and shine as a star forever and 
ever, and the luster of a useful life shall beam forth 
tremulous and beautiful, you ma^' look up into the 
face of Christ and say : My Lord, thou art a 
brighter star— the morning star — a star foreA^er." 

Wandering some day amid the fountains of life that 
toss in the sunlight and fall in the crash of pearL and 
amethvst in o-oklen and crvstalline urn, and you 
wander up the round-banked river to where it first 
tingles its silver on the rock, and out of the chahces 
of love you drink to honor and everlasting joy, you 
may look up into the face of Christ and say: ''My 
Lord, thou art the fountain of living water." 

Some day wandering amid the lambs and sheep in 
the heavenly pastures, feeding by the rock, rejoicing 



154 SEHMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



iij the presence of him who broug-ht you out of the 
wolfish wilderness to the sheepfold above, you may 
look up into his loving- and watchful e^^e and say: ^' My 
Lord, thou art the Shepherd of the everlasting hills.'' 

But there is another name you may select. I will 
imagine that Heaven is done. Every throne has its 
king. Every harp has its harper. Heaven has 
gathered up everything that is worth having. The 
treasures of the whole universe have poured into it. 
The song full. The ranks full. The mansions full. 
Heaven full. The sun shall set afire with splendor the 
domes of the temples, and burnish the golden streets 
into a blaze, and be reflected back from the solid pearl 
of the twelve gates, and it shall be noon in Heaven, 
noon on the river, noon on the hills, noon in all the 
valle^^s — high noon. Then the soul may look up, 
gradually accustoming itself to the vision, shading the 
e3^es as from the almost insufferable splendor of the 
moonday light, until the vision can endure it, then 
crying out : Thou art the Sun that never sets ! " 

At this point I am staggered with the thought that 
notwithstanding all the charm in the name of Jesus, 
and the fact that it is so easy a name, and so beauti- 
ful a name, and so potent a name, and so enduring a 
name, there are people who find no charm m those two 
syllables. Oh, come this day and see whether there is 
anj^thing in Jesus. I challenge those of you who are 
farther from God to come at the close of this service 
and test with me whether God is good, Christ is 
gracious, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. I chal- 
lenge you to come and kneel down with me at the altar 
of mercy. I will kneel one side of the altar and you 
kneel on the other side of it, and neither of us will rise 
up until our sins are forgiven, and we ascribe, in the 
words of the text all honor to the name of Jesus — you 



WHAT IS IN A NAME ? 



155 



pronouncing' it, I pronouncing- it—the name that is 
above eveiy name. 

His worth if all the nations knew, 

Sure the whole earth would love Him too. 

that God to-day, hy the power of his Holy Spirit, 
would roll over you a vision of that blessed Christ, and 
you would begin to weep and pray and believe and re- 
joice. You have heard of the warrior who went out 
to fight against Christ. He knew he was in the wrong, 
and while waging the war against the kingdom of 
Christ, an arrow struck him and he fell. It pierced 
him in the heart, and lying there, his face to the sun, 
his life blood running away, he caught a handful of the 
blood that was running out in his right hand, and held 
it up before the sun and cried out: O Jesus, thou 
hast conquered ! " And if to-day the arrow of God's 
spirit piercing your soul, you felt the truth of what I 
have been trying to proclaim, you would surrender now 
and forever to the Lord who bought yon. Glorious 
name ! I know not whether you will accept it or not ; 
but I will tell you one thing here and now, in the 
presence of angels and men, I take Him to be my Lord, 
my God, my pardon, m^^ peace, my life, my joy, my 
salvation, my Heaven I Blessed be His glorious name 
forever. The name that is above every name." 

Hallelujah I unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. Amen and amen 
and amen." 



"THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME. 



The half was not told me."— I Kings x., 7. 



Out of the sixty-four millions of our present Ameri- 
can population and the millions of our past only about 
five thousand have ever visited the Holy Land. Of 
all those v^ho cross to Europe, less than five per cent 
ever get as far as Rome, and less than two per cent 
ever get to Athens, and less than a quarter of one per 
cent ever get to Palestine. Of the less than a quarter 
of one per cent who do go to the Holy Land, some see 
nothing but the noxious insects and the filth of the Ori- 
ental cities and come back wishing they had never 
gone. Of those who see much of interest and come 
home, only a small portion can tell what they have 
seen, the tongue unable to report the eye. The rarity 
of a successful, intelligent and happy journey through 
the Holy Land is very marked. But the time ap- 
proaches when a journey to Palestine will be common. 
Thousands will go where now there are scores. Two 
locomotives were recently sent up from Joppa to Jeru- 
salem, and railroads are about to begin in Palestine, 
and the day will come when the cry will be, All out 
for Jerusalem ! " Twenty minutes for breakfast at 
Tiberias ! " Change cars for Tyre ! " ''Grand Trunk 
Junction for Nineveh ! All out for Damascus ! 

Meanwhile the wetlocks of the Atlantic Ocean and 
Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas are being shorn, and 
not only is the vo3^age shortened, but, after a while, 
without crossing the ocean, you or your children will 



^^THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME." 



157 



visit the Holy Land. A compan}- of capitalists have 
gone up to Behring- Straits, where the American and 
Asiatic continents come within thirty-six miles of meet- 
ing-. These capitalists or others will build a bridge 
across those straits, for mid- way are three islands called 

The Diomedes/^ and the water is not deep and is never 
disturbed with icebergs. Trains of cars will run from 
America across that bridge and on down through Si- 
beria, bringing under more immediate observation the 
Russian outrages against exiles and consequently abol- 
ishing them, and there are persons here to-day, who, 
without one qualm of sea-sickness, will visit that won- 
derful land where the Christ-like, Abrahamic, Mosaic, 
Davidic, Solomonic and Herodic histories overlap each 
other with such power that b}' the time I took my feet 
out of the stirrups at the close of the journey I felt so 
wrung 6ut with emotion that it seemed nothing else 
could ever absorb my feelings again. 

The chief hindrance for going to Palestine with many 
is the dreadful sea, and though I have crossed it ten 
times it is more dreadful every time, and I fully sym- 
pathize with what was said one night when Mr. Beech- 
er and I went over to speak in New York at the anni- 
versary of the Seamen's Friend Society and the clergy- 
man making the opening prayer quoted from St. John : 

There shall be no more sea," and Mr. Beecher, seated 
beside me, in .memor3^ of a recent ocean voj^age, said, 

Amen, I am glad of that." By the partial abolition of 
the Atlantic Ocean and the putting down of rail tracks 
across every country in all the world, the most sacred 
land on earth will come under the observation of so 
many people, v^ho will be read\^ to tell what they saw, 
that infidelity will be pronounced only another form of 
insanity, for no honest man can visit the Holy Land 
and remain an infidel. This Bible from which I preach 



158 SEjRMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



has almost fallen apart, for I read from it the most of 
the events in it recorded on the verj^ places where they 
occurred. And some of the leaves g-ot wet as the waves 
dashed over our boat on Lake Galilee and the book was 
jostled in the saddle-bags for manj^ weeks, but it is a 
new book to me, newer than any book that yesterday 
came out of any of our great printing-houses. All my 
life I had heard of Palestine and I had read about it, 
talked about it, and preached about it, and sung- about 
it, and prayed about it, and dreamed about it, until my 
anticipations were piled up into something like Hima- 
layan proportions, and yet I have to cry out as did the 
Queen of Sheba when she first visited the Holy Land : 
" The half was not told me." 

In order to make the more accurate and vivid a book 
I have been writing, a life of Christ, entitled '^From 
Manger to Throne," I left home last Octobei*, and on 
the last night of November we were walking the decks 
of the Senegal, a Mediterranean steamer. It was a 
ship of immense proportions. There were but few pas- 
sengers, for it is generally rough at that time of year, 
and pleasurists are not apt to be voyaging* there and 
then. The stars were all out that night. Those ar- 
mies of light seemed to have had their shields newly 
burnished. We walked the polished deck. Not much 
w^as said, for in all our hearts was the dominant word 
^Ho-morrow," Somehow the Acropolis, which a few 
days before had thrilled us at Athens, now in our 
minds lessened in the height of its columns and the glory 
of its temples. And the Egyptian pyramids in our 
memory lessened their w^onders of obsolete masonry, 
and the Coliseum of Home was not so vast a ruin as it 
a few weeks before had seemed to be. And all that we 
had seen and heard dwindled in importance, for to- 
morrow, to-morrow we shall see the Hofy Land, 



^'THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME." 150 

Captain, what time will we come in sig-ht of Pales- 
tine ? " Well/ ' he said, if the wind and sea remain 
as they are, about daybreak." Xever Avas I so im- 
patient for a night to pass. I could not see much use 
for that night, anjiiow. I pulled aside the curtain 
from the port-hole of m\^ stateroom, so that the first 
hint of dawn would waken me. But it was a useless 
precaution. Sleep was among the impossibilities. Who 
could be so stupid as to slumber when any moment 
thei^e might start out within sight of the shii3 the land 
where the most stupendous scenes of all time and all 
eternity were enacted, land of ruin and redemption, 
land where was fought the battle that made our Heav- 
en possible, land of Godfrey and Saladin, of Joshua 
and Jesus. 

Will the night ever be gone ? Yes, it is growing 
lighter, and along the horizon there is something like 
a bank of clouds, and as a watchman paces the deck, 
I say to him : What is that out yonder ? '' That 
island, sir," said the sailor. '^The land I" I cried, 
and soon all our friends were aroused from sleep, and 
the shore began more clearly to reveal itself. With 
roar, and rattle, and bang, the anchor dropped in the 
roadstead a half mile from land, for though Joppa is 
the onl\^ harbor of Palestine, it is the worst harbor on 
all the coasts. Sometimes for weeks no ship stops 
there. Between rocks about seventj^-five feet apart a 
small boat must take the passengers ashore. The 
depths are strewn with the skeletons of those who have 
attempted to land or attempted to embark. Twenty- 
seven pilgrims perished with one crash of a boat 
against the rocks. Whole fleets of crusaders, of Ro- 
mans, of S^^rians, of Egyptians, have gone to splinters 
there. A writer of eight hundred years ago said he 
$tood on the beach in a storm at Joi^pa, and out of 



160 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



thirty ships all but seven went to pieces on the rocks, 
and a thousand of the dead were washed ashore. 

As we descended tlie narrow steps at the side of the 
ship, we heard the clamor, and quarrel, and swearing* 
of fifteen or sixteen different races of men of all fea- 
tures, and all colors, and all vernaculars ; all different 
in appearance, but all alike in desire to get our bag- 
gage and ourselves at exhorbitant prices. Twenty 
boats and only ten passengers to go ashore. The man 
having charg-e of us pushes aside some and strikes 
with a heavy stick others, and by violence that would 
not be tolerated in our country, but which seems to be 
the only manner of making any impression there, 
clears our way into one of the boats, which heads for 
the shore. We are within fifteen minutes of the Christ- 
land. Now we hear shouting from the beach, and in 
five minutes w^e will be landed. The prow of the boat 
is caught by men who wade out to help us in. We are 
tremulous with suppressed excitement, our breath is 
quick, and from the side of the boat we spring to the 
shore, and Sunday morning, December 1, 1889, about 
eight o'clock, our feet touch Palestine. Forever to me 
and mine will that day and hour be commemorated, 
for that pre-eminent mercy. Let it be mentioned in 
prayer by my children and children's children after we 
are gone, that morning we were permitted to enter 
that land, and gaze upon those holy hills, and feel the 
emotions that rise and fall, and weep, and laugh, and 
sing, and triumph at such a disembarkation. 

On the back of hills one hundred and fifty feet high 
Joppa is fitted toward the skies. It is as picturesque 
as it is quaint, and as much unlike any city we have 
ever seen as though it was built in that star Mars, 
where a few nights ag^o this very September, astrono- 
mers ttoough unparalleled telescopes saw a snow 



'^THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME." 



161 



storm ranging-. How glad we Avere to be in Joppa I 
Why, this is the city where Dorcas, that queen of the 
needle, lived and died and was resurrected. You re- 
member that the poor people came around the dead 
bod}^ of this benefactress and brought specimens of 
her kind needlework, and said, " Dorcas made this ; " 

Dorcas sewed that ; " Dorcas cut and fitted this ; " 

Dorcas hemmed that." According to Lightfoot, 
the commentator, they laid her out in state in a public 
room and the poor wrung their hands and cried, and 
sent for Peter, who performed a miracle by which the 
good woman came back to life and resumed her bene- 
factions. An especial resurrection day for one 
woman! She was the model by which many w^omen 
of our day have fashioned their lives, and at the first 
blast of the horn of the wintry tempest there appear 
ten thousand Dorcases — Dorcases of Brooklyn, Dor- 
cases of New York, Dorcases of London, Dorcases of 
all the neighborhoods and towns and cities^ of Christen- 
dom, just as good as the Dorcas of the Joppa which I 
visited. Thank God for the ever-increasing skill 
and sharpness and speed and generosity of Dorcas's 
needle ! 

What is that man doing?" I said to the drago- 
man in the streets of Joppa. Oh, he is carrying his 
bed/' Multitudes of the people sleep out of doors, 
and that is the way so many in those lands become 
blind. It is from the dew of the night falling on the 
e3'elids. As a result of this, in Egypt ever}^ twentieth 
person is totally blind. In Oriental lands the bed is 
made of a thin small mattress, a blanket and a pillow, 
and when the man rises in the morning he just ties up 
the three into a bundle and shoulders it and takes it 
away. It was to that the Saviour referred when he 
said to the sick man, Take up thy bed and walk.'' 



162 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



An American couch or an English couch would re- 
quire at least four men to carry it, but one Oriental 
can easily manage his slumber equipment. 

But I inhale some of the odors of the large tanneries 
around Joppa. It is there, to this day, a prosperous 
business, tliis tanning of hides. And that reminds me 
of Simon the tanner, who lived at Joppa, and was a 
host of Peter the apostle. I suppose the olfactories 
of Peter were as easily insulted by the odors of a tan- 
nery as others. But the Bible says, " He lodged with 
one Simon, a tanner.'' People who go out to do reform- 
atory and missionary and Christian work must not be 
too sensitive. Simon, no doubt, brought to his home- 
stead every night the malodors of the calf-skins and 
ox-hides in his tannery, but Peter lodged in that home, 
not only because he may not have been invited to the 
houses of merchant princes surrounded by redolent 
gardens, but to teach all men and women engaged in 
trying to make the world better, they must not be 
squeamish and fastidious and finical and over-particular 
in doing the work of the world. The Church of God is 
dying of fastidiousness. We cry over the sufferings of 
the world in hundred dollar pocket handkerchiefs, and 
then put a cent in the poor box. There are many 
willing to do Christian work among the cleanly and the 
refined and the elegant and the educated ; but excuse 
them from taking a loaf of bread down a dirty allej^ 
excuse them from teaching a mission school among the 
uncombed and unwashed, excuse them from touching 
the hand of one whose finger-nails are in mourning for 
departed soap. Such religious precisionists can toil in 
atmospheres laden with honeysuckle and rosemary, but 
not in air floating up from the malodorous vats. No, 
no, no ! excuse them from lodging with one Simon, the 
tamier, 



^^THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME.^' 



163 



During the last war, there were in Virg-inia some 
sixty or seventy wounded soldiers in a barn on the 
second floor, so near the roof that the heat of the Au- 
gust sun was almost insupportable. The men were 
dying from sheer exhaustion and suffocation. A dis- 
tinguished member of the Christian Commission said to 
the nurse who stood there, Wash the faces and feet 
of the semen and it will revive them." No/' said the 
nurse, I didn't come into the 2ivmy to wash anybody's 
feet." WeJl," said the distinguished member of the 
commission, bring me water and towel ; I will be very 
glad to wash their feet." One was the spirit of the 
devil, the other the spirit of Christ. 

But reference to Peter reminds me that we must go 
to the house-top in Joppa where he was taught the 
democrac3" of religion. That was about the queerest 
thing that ever happened. On our way up to that 
house-top we passed an old well where the great 
stones were worn deep with the ropes of the buckets, 
and it must be a w^ell many centuries old, and I think 
Peter drank out of it. Four or five goat or calf skins 
filled with water l2iy about the yard. We soon got up 
the steps and on the house-top. It was in such a place 
in Joppa that Peter, one noon, while he was waiting 
for dinner, had a hungr^^ fit and fainted away and had 
a vision or dream or trance. I said to my family and 
friends on that house-top, Listen while I read about 
what happened here." And, opening the Bible, we had 
the whole story. It seems that Peter on the house-top 
dreamed that a great blanket was let down out of 
Heaven, and in it were sheep and goats and cattle and 
mules and pigeons and buzzards and snakes and all 
manner of creatures that the air or walk the fields, 
^ or crawl the earth, and in the dream a voice told him 
as he was hungry, to eat, and he said, I cannot eat 



164 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



thing\s unclean/' Three times he dreamed it. There 
was then heard a knocking* at the gate of the house on 
the top of which Peter lay in a trance and three men 
asked, " Is Peter here ? ^' Peter^ while yet wondering* 
what his dream meant, descends the stairs and meets 
these strangers at the gate^ and t\\ey tell him that a 
good man by the name of Cornelius, in the city of 
Caesarea, has also had a dream and has sent them for 
Peter and to ask him to come and preach. At that call 
Peter left Joppa for Caesarea. The dream he had just 
had prepared him to preach, for Peter learned by it to 
reject no people as unclean, and whereas he previously 
thought he must preach only to the Jews, now he goes 
to preach to the Gentiles, who were considered un- 
clean. 

Notice how the two dreams meet — Peter's dream on 
the house-top, Cornelius' dream at Caesarea. So I have 
noticed providences meet, distant events meet, dreams 
meet. Every dream is hunting up some other dream 
and every event is searching for some other event. In 
the fifteenth century (1492) the great event was the 
discovery of America. The art of printing, born in the 
same century, goes out to meet that discovery and 
make the new world an intelligent world. The Decla- 
ration of Independence announcing equal rights meets 
Robert Burns's 

A man's a man for a' that." 

The United States was getting too large to be man- 
aged by one government, and telegraphy was invented 
to compress within an hour the whole continent. 
Armies in the civil war were to be fitted out with cloth- 
ing, and the sewing machine invention came out to 
make it possible. Immense farming acreage is pre- 
sented in this country, enough to support millions of 



^'the half was not told me. 



165 



our native born and millions of foreigners ; but the old 
style of plough, and sc^^tlie, and reaper, and thresher 
cannot do the work, and there came steam x)loughs, 
steam harrows, steam reapers, steam rakes, steam 
threshers, and the work is accomplished. The forests 
of the earth fail to afford sufficient fuel, and so the coal 
mines surrender a sufficiency. The cotton crops were 
luxuriant, hut of comparativeh^ little value, for they 
could not be managed, and so, at just the right time, 
Hargreaves came Avitli his invention of the spinning 
jenny, and Arkwright with his roller, and Whitney 
with his cotton-gin. The world, after pottering along 
with tallow candles and whale oil, vras crjing for bet- 
ter light and more of it ; and the hills of Pennsylvania 
poured out rivers of oil and kerosene illumined the 
nations. But the oil-wells began to fail, and then the 
electric light comes forth to turn night into day. So 
all events are woven together, and the world is mag- 
nificently governed, because it is divinely governed. 
"We criticise things and think the divine machinery is 
going wrong, and put our fingers amid the wheels only 
to get them crushed. But, I say, Hands off ! Things 
are coming out gloriousl3^ Cornelius may be in Ccesa- 
rea, and Peter in Joppa, but their di^eams meet. It is 
one hand that is managing the world, and that is God's 
hand, and one mind that is planning all things for good, 
and that is God's mind ; and one heart that is filled 
with love and pardon, and sympathy, and that is God's 
heart. Have faith in him. Fret about nothing. 
Things are not at loose ends. There are no accidents. 
All will come out right in your history and in the 
world. As you are waking from one dream upstairs, 
an explanatory dream will be knocking at the gate 
down stairs. 

Standing here in Joppa, I remember that where we 



166 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



this morning' disembarked the prophet Jonah em- 
barked. For the first time in my life I fully imderstood 
that story. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, but the 
prophet declined that call and came here to Joppa. I 
was for weeks, while in the Holy Land, consulting 
with tourist companies as to how I could take Mneveh 
in my journey. They did not encourage the undertak- 
ing. It is a most tedious ride to Nineveh and a desert. 
Now I see an additional reason why Jonah did not want 
to go to Nineveh. He not only revolted because of the 
disagreeable message he was called to deliver at Nine- 
veh, but because it was a long way and tough, and 
bandit-infested, so he came here to Joppa and took 
ship. But, alas ! for the disastrous voyage ! He paid 
his full fare for the whole voyage, but the ship com- 
pany did not fill their part of the contract. To this 
day they have not paid back that passage money. 
Why people should doubt the story of Jonah and the 
whale is more of a mystery than the Bible event itself. 
I do not need the fact that Pliny, the historian, records 
that the skeleton of a whale forty feet long, and with a 
hide a foot and a half thick, was brought from Joppa 
to Home. The event recorded in the book of Jonah 
has occured a thousand times. The Lord always has 
a whale outside the harbor for a man who starts in the 
wrong direction. Recreant Jonah I I do not wonder 
that even the whale was sick of him. This prophet was 
put in the Bible, not as an example, but as a warning, 
because the world not only needs lighthouses but 
buoys to show where the rocks are. The Bible story 
of him ends by showing the prophet in a fit of the sulks. 
He was mad because Nineveh vvas not destroyed, and 
then he went out to pout, and sat under a big leaf, 
using it for shade from the tropical sun, and when a 
worm disturbed that leaf, and it withered and the suii 



^^THE HALF WAS SOT TOLD ME.'' 



167 



smote Jonah, he flew into a great rage, and said : It 
is better for me to die than to live.'' A prophet in a 
rage because he had lost his umbrella ! Beware of 
petulance ! 

But standing on this Joppa house-top, I look off on 
the Mediterranean, and vrhat is that strange sight I 
see ? The ^vaters are black, seemingly for miles. 
There seems to be a great multitude of logs fastened 
together. Oh yes, it is a great raft of timbers. They 
are cedars of Lebanon whicli King Hiram is furnishing 
King Solomon in exchange for 20,000 measures of 
wheat, 20,000 baths of oil, and 20,000 baths of wine. 
These cedars have been cut down and trimmed in the 
mountains of Lebanon by the 70^000 axmen engaged 
there and with great withes and iron bolts are fastened 
together, and they are floating down to Joppa to be 
taken across the land for Solomon's temple now build- 
ing at Jerusalem, for we have lost our hold of the nine- 
teenth century and are clear back in the ages. The 
rafts of cedar are guided into what is called the Moon 
Pool, an old harbor south of Joppa, now filled with 
sand and useless. With long pikes the timber is 
pushed this way and that in the water, then with lev- 
ers, and many a loud, long Lo. heave I ' ' as the carters 
get their shoulders under the great weight, the timber 
is fastened to the wagons and the lowing oxen are 
yoked to the load, and the procession of teams moves 
on with crack of vrhip, and drawled-out words which 
translated, I suppose, would correspond with the 
^^Whoa, haw, gee!" of modern teamsters, toward 
Jerusalem, which is thirty miles away, over mountain- 
ous distances, which for hundreds of years defied all 
engineering. And these rough cedars shall become 
carved pillars, and beautiful altars, and rounded ban- 



168 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



nisters, and traceried panels^ and sublime ceiling and 
exquisite harps^ and kingiy chariots. 

As the wag-on train moves out from Joppa over the 
plain of Sharon toward Jerusalem^ I say to myself, 
What vast numbers of people helped build that temple 
of Solomon, and what vast numbers of people are now 
engaged in building the wider, higher, grander temple 
of righteousness rising in the earth. Our Christian 
ancestry toiled at it, amid sweat and tears, and hun- 
dreds of the generations of the good, and the long 
train of Christian workers still moves on, and as in the 
construction of Solomon^s temple some hewed with the 
ax in far away Lebanon, and some drove a wedge, 
and some twisted a withe, and some trod the wet and 
slippery rafts on the sea, and some yoked the ox, and 
some pulled at the load, and some shoved the plane, 
and some fitted the pomts, and some heaved up the 
rafters, but all helped build the temple, though some 
of these never saw it, so now let us all put our hands, 
and our shoulders, and our hearts to the work of build- 
ing the temple of righteousness, which is to fill the 
earth ; and one will bind a wound, and another will 
wipe away a tear, and another will teach a class, and 
another will speak the encouraging word, and all of us 
will be ready to pull and lift and in some way help on 
the work until the millennial morn shall gild the pin- 
nacle of that finished temple, and at its shining gates 
the world shall put down its last burden, and in its 
lavers v/ash off its last stain, and at its altar the last 
wanderer shall kneel. At the dedication of that tem- 
ple all the armies of earth and Heaven will shoulder 
arms,'^ and present arms," and ^ Aground arms,'' for 

behold ! a greater than Solomon is here." 

But my first day in the Holy Land is ended. The 
sun is already closing his e^^e for the night. I stand 



THE HALF WAS XOT TOLD ME. 



169 



on the balcoiy of a hotel AA'hich was brought to Joppa 
in pieces from the State of Z\Iaine by some fanatics 
who came here expecting to see Christ reappear in Pal- 
estine. My room here was once occupied by that 
Christian hero of the centuries — English, Cliinese, 
Egyptian, worldwide General Ciordon. a man mighty 
for God as well as for the world's pacification. Al- 
though tlie first of December and winter., the air is 
full of fragrance from gai^dens all a-bloom, and under 
juy window are acacia and taniarisk and mulberry 
and century plants and orange groves and oleander. 
From the drowsiness of the air and the fatigues of the 
day I feel sleepy. Good-night I To-morrow morning 
we start for Jerusalem. 



"I WENT UP TO JERUSALEM. 



went up to Jerusalem." — Galatians i., 18. 



My second day in the Holy Land. We are in Joppa. 
It is six o'clock in the morning*, but we must start 
earlj^, for by night we are to be in Jerusalem, and that 
city is forty-one miles away. We may take camel, or 
horse, or carriage. As to-day will be our last oppor- 
tunity in Palestine for taking the wheel, we choose 
that. The horses, with harness tasseled and jingling, 
are hitched, and, with a dragoman in coat of many 
colors seated in front, we start on a road which unveils 
within twelve hours enough to think of for all time 
and all eternity. Farewell, Mediterranean, with such 
a blue as no one but the Divine Chemist could mix, 
and such a fire of morning glow as only the Divine 
Illuminator could kindle ! Hail! Mountains of Ephraim 
and Juda vvhose ramparts of rock we shall mount in a 
few hours, for modern engineers can make a road any- 
where, and without piling Ossa upon Pelion, those 
giants can scale the heavens. 

We start out of the city amid barricades of cactus 
on either side. ISTot cacti in boxes two or three feet 
high, but cactus higher than the top of the carriage — 
a plant that has more swords for defense, considering 
the amount j3f beauty it can exhibit, than anything 
created. We passed out amid about four hundred 
gardens seven or eight acres to the garden, from 
which at the right seasons are plucked oranges, 
lemons, figs, olives, citron, and pomegranates, and 



^^I WENT UP TO JERUSALEM. 



171 



which hold up their censers of perfume before the 
Lord in perpetual praise. We meet great proces- 
sions of camels loaded with kegs of oil and with 
fruits, and some wealthy Mohammedan with four wives 
— three too many. The camel is a proud, mysterious^ 
solemn, ancient, ungainly, majestic and ridiculous 
shape, standing out of the past. The driver with his 
whip taps the camel on the foreleg, and he kneels to 
take you as a rider. But when he rises, hold fast or 
you will fall off backward as he puts his fore-feet in 
standing posture, and then you will fall off in front as 
his back legs take their place. But the inhabitants are 
used to his ways, although I find the riders often dis- 
mount and walk as though to rest themselves. Better 
stand out of the path of the camel; he stops for nothing 
and seems not to look down, and in the street I saw a 
child, b}" the stroke of a camel's front foot, hurled seven 
or eight feet along the ground. 

Here we meet people with faces, and arms, and 
hands tattooed, as in all lands sailors tattoo their 
arms with some favorite ship or admired face. It 
was to this habit of tattooing among the Orientals 
that God refers in a figure, when he sa^rs of his 
Church: ^^I have graven thee on the palms of my 
hands. ^' 

Many of these regions are naturally sand^^ but hy 
irrigation they are made fruitful, and, as in this irri- 
gation the brooks and rivers are turned this way and 
that to water the gardens or farms, so the Bible says, 
^'The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord, and he 
turneth it as the rivers of water are turned, whitherso- 
ever he \Yill." 

As we passed out and on we find about eight hun- 
dred acres belonging to the Universal Israelitish 
Alliance. Montefiore, the Israelitish centenarian and 



72 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



philanthropist, and Rothschild, the banker, and othei's 
of the large-hearted have paid the passage to Pales- 
tine for many of the Israelites, aiid set apa^rt lands for 
their culture ; and it is onl^^ a beginning of the fulfill- 
ment of Divine prophecj^ when these people shall take 
possession of the Holy Land. The road from Joppa 
to Jerusalem, and all the roads leading to Nazareth 
and Galilee, we saw lined with processions of Jews, 
going to the sacred places, either on holy pilgrimage, 
or as settlers. All the fingers of Providence nowa- 
days are pointing tov/ard that resumption of Palestine 
by the Israelites. I do not take it that the pros- 
pered Israelites of other lands are to go there. They 
would be foolish to lea^ve ^their prosperities in our 
American cities, where thoy are among our best 
citizens, and cross two seas to begin life over again in 
a strange land. But the outrages heaped upon them 
in Eussia, and the insults offered them in Germany, 
will soon quadruple and centuple the j)rocession of 
Israelites from Russia to Palestine. 

Facilities for getting there will be multiplied, not 
only in the railroad from Joppa to Jerusalem, to which 
I referred last Sabbath as being built, but permission 
for a road from Damascus to the Bay of Acre has been 
obtained, and that of course will soon connect with 
Joppa, and make one great ocean-shore railroad. So 
the railroad from Jerusalem to Joppa, from Joppa to 
Damascus, will soon bring all the Holy Land within a 
few hours of connection. Jewish colonization societies 
in England and Russia are gathering money for the 
transportation of the Israelites to Palestine, and for 
the purchase for them of lands and farming imple- 
ments, and so many desire to go that it is decided by 
lot as to which families shall go first. They were 
God's chosen people at the first, and he has promised 



WEXT UP TO JERUSALEM.'^ iTo 

to bring them back to their home, and there is no 
power in one thousand or fi\^ thousand years to make 
God forget his promises. Those who are prospered in 
other lands will do well to stay where they are. But 
let the Israelites, who are depreciated, and attacked, 
and persecuted, turn their faces towards the rising sun 
of their deliverance. God will gather in that distant 
land those of that race who have been maltreated, and 
he will blast with the lightnings of his omnipotence 
those lands on either side of the Atlantic which have 
been the instruments of annoyance and harm to that 
Jewish race, to which belonged Abraham, and David, 
and Joshua, and Baron Hirsch, and Montefiore. and 
Paul the Apostle, and Mary the Virgin, and Jesus 
Christ the Lord. 

On the way across the plain of Sharon we meet many 
veiled women. It is not respectable for them to go un- 
veiled, and it is a veil that is so hung as to make them 
hideous. A man may not even see the face of his wife 
until after betrothal, or engagement of marriage. 
Hence the awful mistakes, and the unhappy homes, 
for God has made the face an index of character, and 
honesty or dishonesty usually is demonstrated in the 
features. I do not see what God made a fair face for 
if it were not to be looked at. But here come the 
crowds of disfigured women doAvn the road on their 
way to Joppa, bundles of sticks for firewood on their 
heads. They started at three o'clock in the morning 
to get the fuel. They stagger under the burdens. 
AVhipped and beaten will some of them be if their bun- 
dle, of sticks is too small. All tliat is reiiuired for di- 
vorcement is for a man to say to his wife : *' Be off, I 
don't want you any more/' Woman a- slave in all 
lands, except those in which the Gospel of Christ makes 
her a cj[ueen. And yet in Christian countries there 



174 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

are women posing as skeptics, and men with family 
deriding the only religion that makes sacred and hon- 
orable the names of wife, mother, daughter, and sister. 

"What is that ? Town of Ramleh, birthplace, resi- 
dence and tomb of Samuel, the glorious prophet. 

Nearby is the Tower of Forty Martyrs, so called be- 
cause that number of disciples perished there for 
Christ's sake ; but if towers had been built for all those 
who in the time of war as in time of peace, have fallen 
on this road during the ages past, you might almost 
walk on turrets from Joppa to Jerusalem. 

Now we pass guard-houses which are castles of 
chopped straw and mud, where at night and partly 
through the day armed men dwell and keep the ban- 
dits off travelers. In the caves of these mountains 
dwell men to whom massacre would be high play and 
a purse with a few pennies would be compensation 
enough for the struggle that the savage might have 
with the wayfarer. There is onl}^ one other defen e 
that amounts to much in these lands, and that is the 
law of hospitality. If you can get an Arab to eat with 
you, if only one mouthful, you are sure of his protec- 
tion, and that has been so from age to age. The Lord's 
Supper was built on that custom, a special friendship 
after partaking food together. To that custom Walter 
Scott refers in his immortal Talisman," where Sala- 
din,with one stroke of the sword, strikes the head from 
an enemy who stands in Saladin's tent with a cup in 
his hand, and before he has time to put it to his lip, 
and does it so suddenly that the body of his enemy, be- 
headed, stands for a moment after the beheading, with 
the cup still in his right hand. After the cup had been 
sipped it would have been impossible, according to the 
laws of Oriental hospitality, to give the fatal blow. 

The only lands where it is safe to travel unarmed are 



^^I WENT UP TO JERUSALEM.'' 175 

Christian lands. Human life is more highly valued 
and personal riglils are better respected^ and I am glad 
to believe that in our country, from the Atlantic Ocean 
to the Pacific Ocean, there is not a place to-day where 
a man in not safer without a pistol than with one. But 
all through our journeys in Palestine we required fire- 
arms. While the only weapon I had on my person was 
a New Testament, we went through the region where 
I said to the dragoman: David, are you armed?" 
and he said, Yes," "and I said, ^^Are those fifteen or 
twenty muleteers or baggage-men and attendants 
armed ? " and he said, " Yes," and I felt safer. 

On we roll through the Plain of Sharon. Here grew 
the rose after which Christ was named. Rose of Sharon, 
celebrated in all Christendom and throughout all ages. 
There has been controversy as to'what flower it was. 
Some say it was a marsh-mallow that thrives here, and 
some claim this honor for the narcissus, and some for 
the blue iris, and some for the scarlet anemone, for you 
must know that this Plain of Sharon is a rolling ocean 
of color when the spring breezes move across it. But 
leaving the botanists in controversy as to what it is, I 
would take the most aromatic and beautiful of them 
all and twist them into a garland for the " Name which 
is above every name.^' 

Yonder, a little to the north as we move on, is the 
Plain of Ono. The Bible mentions it again and again. 
The village standing on this Plain of Ono is a mud vil- 
lage. Two great basins of rock catch the rains for the 
people. Of more importance in olden time than in 
modern time was this Plain of Ono. But as the drag- 
oman announced it and in the Bible I read of it, I was 
reminded of the vast multitude of people who now 
dwell in the Plain of Ono. They are, by their nervous 
constitution or by their lack of faith in God, always in 



176 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND, 



the negative. Will you help to build a church ? Oh^ 
no ! Will 3^ou start out in some new Christian enter- 
prise ? Oh, no ! Do 3^ou think the world is getting- 
an^^ better ? Oh, no ! They lie down in the path of 
all good movements, sanitary, social, political and re- 
ligious. They harness their horses with no traces to 
pull ahead, but only breeching-straps to hold back. For 
all Christian work I vs^ould not give for a thousand of 
them the price of a clipped ten-cent piece. They are 
in the Plain of Oh, no ! May the Lord multiply the 
numbers of those who, when anything good is under- 
taken, are found to live in the Plain of Oh, yes ! Will 
you support this new charity ? Oh, yes ! Do you 
think that this victim of evil habit can be reformed ? 
Oh, yes ! Are you willing to do an3' tiling, whether 
obscure or resounding, fort he welfare of the Church 
and the salvation of a ruined world ? Oh, yes ? But 
I am sorry to say that the most populous plain in all 
the earth to-day is the Plain of Ono. 

Here now we come where stood the fields into which 
Samson fired the foxes. The foxes are no rarity in this 
land. I counted at one time twent}^ or thirt}^ of them 
in one group, and the cry all along the line was 

Foxes ! Look at the foxes ! " and at night they some- 
times bark until all attempts to sleep are an absurdity. 
Those I saw and heard in Palestine might have been 
descendants of the very foxes that Samson employed 
for an appalling incendiarism. The wealth of that land 
was in the harvests, and it was harvest time and the 
straw was dry. Three hundred foxes are caught and 
tied in couples by some wire or incombustible cord 
w^hich the flames cannot divide, and firebrands are 
fastened to those couples of foxes, and the afTrighted 
creatures are let loose and run . every whither among 
the harvests and in the awful blaze down go the corn- 



'^I WENT UP TO JERUSALEM." 



shocks, and the vine^^ards, and the olives, and all 
through the valle3^s and over the hills, and among the 
villages is heard the cry of Fire ! And in the burnt 
pathwa,y walk Hunger, and Want, and Desolation. 

All this for spite. And some theologians learn one 
thing, and some another. But I learn from it that a 
great man may sometimes stoop to a very mean piece 
of business, and that if men would use as much ingenu- 
ity in tr^ang to bless as they do in trying to destroy-, 
the w^orld all the way down would have been in better 
condition. Yet the fire of the foxes, kindled that night 
in Palestine, has not gone out, but has leaped the seas, 
and the sly foxes, the human foxes, are now still run- 
ning every whither, kindling political fires, fires of relig- 
ious controversy^ fires of hate, world-wide fires, and 
whole harvests of righteousness perish. It took the 
hard work of multitudes on all those plains of Palestine 
for months and months to rear the vine and raise the 
corn, but it took only three hundred worthless foxes 
one night to blaze all into ashes. 

Brace up your nerves now, that you may look while 
I point them out. Yonder is Kirjath-Jearim, where 
the ark of God stayed until David took it to Jerusalem. 
Yonder John the Baptist was born. Yonder is Em- 
maus, where Christ walked with the disciples at even- 
tide. Here are men ploughing, only one handle to the 
plough, showing the accuracy^ of Christ's allusion. 
When we plough in America or England there are two 
hands on two handles, but in Palestine only one handle. 
And so Christ uses the singular, saying, " No man 
having put his hand to the plough and looking back is 
fit for the kingdom.' ■ The ox is urged on by a Avooden 
stick pointed with sharp iron, and the ox knows enough 
not to kick, for he would only hurt himself instead of 
breaking the goad. And the Bible refers to that vrhen 



178 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



it says to Saul : It is hard for thee to kick against 
the goads." 

Here is the valley of Ajalon^ famous for Joshua's 
pursuit of the five kings, and the lunar arrest. And in 
imagination I see the moon in day-time halt. "Who has 
not sometimes seen the moon dispute the throne with 
the sun ? But when the king of day and the queen of 
night, who never before Joshua's time, nor since then, 
stopped a moment in their march, halted at Joshua's 
command, it was a scene, enough to make the universe 
shiver : " Moon ! stand thou still in the valley of Aja- 
lon ! " At another time we will see the sun stop above 
Gibeon, but now we have only to do v/ith the moon,^ 
and you must remember that it was more of an orb 
than it is now. It is a burnt-out world now, a dead 
world now, an extinct world now, a corpse laid out in 
state, in the heavens, waiting for the judgment day to 
bury it. But on the day of which I speak the moon 
was probably a living world, yet it halted at the v/ave 
of Joshua's finger, " Stand thou still ! " Do not budge 
an inch until Joshua finishes those five kings, who are 
there tumbling over the rocks, sword of man slashing 
them, hailstones out of the sky pelting them. 

And there is the cavern of Makkedah, where they fled 
for safety, and where they were afterwards locked in, 
and from which they were taken out to be slain, and in 
which the3" were afterwards buried ; and you do well to 
examine that cavern, for within a few hours it became 
three things which no other cave ever was : Fortress, 
prison, sepulcher. 

Now we pass the place where once lived one of the 
greatest robbers of the century, Abou Gosh by name. 
From this point, you see, he could look over all the 
surrounding country, and long before the travelers 
came up to him, the plan for the taking of their money 



'^I WENT UP TO JERUSALEM.'' 



179 



or their life, or both^ was consummated. He one day 
found a company of monlvS who would not pay, and he 
smothefed them to death in a hot oven. In his last 
days he lived here like an Oriental prince, and had his 
attendants and admirers, to whom he told the stories 
of brigandage and assassination. So late as when our 
eminent and beloved American, William C. Prime, 
passed through, Abou Gosh, the scoundrelly Bedouin, 
sat at his doorway, smoking his pipe. His descendants 
live in this village, and probably are no more honest 
than their distinguished ancestor, but marauding and 
murder are not as safe a business now as when all 
this route to Jerusalem was subject to outrages pande- 
nroniac. 

Here we pass the village of Latrun, the home of the 
penitent thief, the village a few straggling houses on 
steep hills rising from the valle^^ of Ajalon. Up these 
steep hills, in his earlier days, the thief had carried 
the spoils of arson and burglary, and down them he 
had borne the heavier burden of a guilty heart. But 
higher than these hills he motmted, after he had re- 
pented, from the tranfixed posture on the cross to the 
bosom of a forgiving God. 

Now we come to the brook Elah, from which little 
David took the smooth stones with which he pros- 
trated Goliath. There is a bridge sxDanning the ravine, 
but at the season we crossed there is not a drop of 
water in the brook. AVe went down into the ravine 
a.nd walked amid the pebbles that, had been washed 
smooth, very smooth, by the rush of the waters 
through all the ages. There is where David armed 
himself. He walked around and picked up five of 
these polislied pebbles. He got them of just the right 
size. He prepared himself for five volleys, so that if 
the giant escapes the first, he will not escape the 



180 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



whole five. The topography of the place so corre- 
sponds with the Bible story that I could see the mem- 
orable f]g"ht go on. It is the only fight I fever did 
watch. Pugilism I abhor, but there were two cham- 
pions, the one God-appointed, the other Satan-ap- 
pointed, and deciding the destiny of a nation, the 
destiny of a world. It was a Marathon, an Arbela, 
a Waterloo, a Blenheim, a Sedan, concentered into two 
right arms. Here are two ridges of mountains five 
hundred feet high, the Philistines on one ridge, the 
Israelites on the other ridge. The fight is in the 
valley between, at that season shaded, and sweet with 
terebinth and acacia. David, the champion for the 
Israelites ; Goliath, the champion for the Philistines. 
David, under-sized and almost effeminate, only a 
mouthful for Goliath, who was nearly ten feet high. 

They advance to meet each other, but the Bible 
says that David made the first step forward. Nearer 
and nearer they come, but I do not think David will 
wait until he comes within reach of Goliath's sword, 
for that would be fatal, and David has a weapon with 
which he can fight at long range. Closer and closer 
they come, but David advances the more rapidly. 

Come to me," said the giant, and I will give thy 
flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the 
field.'' You see Goliath going to give David, for a 
banquet to the vulture and jackal. He, the mountain 
of flesh, will fall over on that little hillock. I hear 
him laugh through the mouthpiece of his hehnet. He 
will toast the little whiftet on the top of his long 
sword. He will call all the crows for a breakfast, 
" Come to me 3^ou contemptible little fell(fw, and I will 
make quick work with you. The idea that a five- 
footer should dare to come out against a ten-footer ! 
Let the two armies looking down from the ridges 



^^I WENT UP TO JERUSALEM. 



181 



"watcli me !" David responded : ^'I come to thee in 
the name of the Lord of hosts." Aha, that is the 
right kind of battle-shout. In the name of the Lord 
of hosts ! " How that cry ring's through the Wady- 
es-Sumpt ! He who fights in that spirit wins the da3^ 
The almost dwarfed Israelite enlarges into omnipotent 
proportions. The moment to strike has come. David 
takes his sling with a stone in it and whirls it round 
and round his head, until he has put the weapon into 
sufficient momentum, and then, taking sure aim, hurls 
it. The giant throws up his hands and reels back and 
falls. The stone sank into his forehead. That was 
the only available point of attack. But how about 
the helmet on his head ? Did the stone that David 
flung crush through the hemlet ? No ; an old rabbi 
sa3^s he thinks that when Goliath scoffed at David, the 
giant so suddenly and contemptuously jerked up his 
head that the hemlet fell off. That is like enough. 
David saw the bare forehead, a foot high, and aimed 
at the center of it, and the skull cracked and broke in 
like an eggshell, and the ground shook as this great 
oak of a military chieftain struck it. Huzzah for 
David ! 

But we must hasten on, for the danger now is that 
night will be upon us before we reach Jerusalem. Oh ! 
we must see it before sundown. We are climbing the 
hills which are terraced with olive groves, uplands 
rising above uplands, until we come to an immensity 
of barrenness, gray rocks above gray rocks, where 
neither tree, nor leaf, nor bush, nor grass-blade can 
grow. The horses stumble, and slip, and pull, till it 
seems the harness must break. Solemnity and awe 
take possession of us. Though a vivacious partj^ and 
during part of the day jocularitj^ had reigned, now no 
one spoke a word except to say to the dragoman, 



182 BEMONS OlSr ^HE HOLY LAlSfl). 



Tell us when you get the first glimpse of the city.'^ 
I never had such high expectation of seeing any place 
as of seeing Jerusalem. I think m^^ feelings may have 
been slightly akin to that of the Christian just about 
to enter the heavenly Jerusalem. My ideas of the 
earthly Jerusalem were bewildering. Had I not seen 
pictures of it? Oh yes; but they only increase the be- 
wilderment. They were taken from a variety of stand- 
points. If twenty artists attempt to sketch Brooklyn, 
or New York, or London, or Jerusalem, they will plant 
their cameras at different places, and take as many 
different pictures, but in a few minutes I shall see the 
sacred city with my own eyes. Over another shoulder 
of the hill we go, and nothing in sight but rocks and 
mountains, and awful gulches between them, which 
make the head swim if you look down. On and up, on 
and up, until the lathered and smoking horses are 
reined in, and the dragoman rises in front and points 
eastward, crying, Jerusalem ! " It was mightier 
than an electric shock. We all rose. There it lay, the 
prize of nations, the terminus of famous pilgrimages, 
the object of Roman and crusading wars, and for it 
Assyrians had fought, and Egyptians had fought, and 
the world had fought; the place which the Queen of 
Sheba visited, and Richard Coeur de Lion had con- 
quered. Home ©f Solomon. Home of Ezekiel. Home 
of Jeremiah. Home of Isaiah. Home of Saladin. Mount 
Zion of David's heartbreak, and Mount Moriah, where 
the sacrifices smoked, Mount of Olives where Jesus 
preached, and Gefchsemane where he agonized, and 
Golgotha where he died, and the Holy Sepulcher where 
he was buried. Oh, Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! Greatest 
city on earth, and type of the city celestial. . 

After I have been ten thousand years in Heaven, 
hhe memory of that first view from the rocks on the 



''l WENT UP TO JERUSALEM. 



183 



afternoon of December 2d will be as vivid as now. 
An Arab on a horse that was like a whirlwind, bitted 
and. saddled and spurred, its mane and flanks jet as 
the nig'ht — and there are no such horsemen as Arab 
horsemen — had come far out to meet us, and invite us 
to his hotel inside the gates. But arrangements had 
been made for us to stay at a hotel oiitsi ie the gates. 
In the dusk of evening we halted in front of the place 
and entered, but I said, Xo, thank you for your 
courteous reception, but I must sleep to-night inside 
the gates of Jerusalem. I would rather have the 
poorest place inside the gates than the best place out- 
side.'' So we remounted our coach and moved on 
amid a clamor of voices, and between camels grunting- 
Avirli great beams and timbers on their backs, brought 
in for building x^urposes — for it is amazing hovr much 
a camel can carry — until we came to what is called 
the Joppa Gate of Jerusalem. It is about forty feet 
wide, twenty feet deep, and sixty feet high. There is 
a sharp turn just after you have entered, so planned as 
to make the entrance of armed enemies the more diffi- 
cult. On the structure of these gates the safety of 
Jerusalem, depended and all the Bible writers used 
them for iilustrations. Within five minutes' walk of 
the gate vre entered, David v;rote : Enter into th}^ 
gates with thanksgiving,*' Lift up your heads, O ye 
gates!" "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion," 
Open to me the gates of righteousness.'' And Isaiah 
wrote : ** GothroLigh, go through the gates." And the 
captive of Patmos wrote : " The city had twelve gates." 
Having passed the gate we went on through the narrow 
streets, diinly-lighted- and passed to our haltiug-place, 
and sat down by the window from ^vhich we could see 
Mount Zion, and said : Here w^e are at last, in the 
capital of the whole earth/- And thoughts of the 



184: SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

past and the future rushed through my soul in quick 
succession, and I thought of that old hj^mn, sung by 
so many ascending spirits : 

Jerusalem, my happy home. 

Name ever dear to me ! 
When shah my labors have an end, 

In joy and peace and thee? 

When shall these eyes thy Heav'n-built walls 

And pearly gates behold ? 
Thy bulwarks with salvation strong, 

And streets of shining gold ? 

And so with our hearts full of gratitude to God for 
journeying mercies all the way from Joppa to Jerusa- 
lem, and with bright anticipation of our entrance into 
the shining gate of the heavenly city when earthly 
journeys are over, my second day in Palestine is 
ended. 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP IN JERUSA- 
LEM. 



"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem^ let my right hand forget her 
cunning." — PsaUn cxxxvii., 5. 



Paralysis of liis best liaucl, the withering of its 
muscles and nerveSj is here invoked if the author 
allows to pass out of mind the grandeurs of the Holy 
City where once he dwelt. Jeremiah, seated by the 
river Eaphi'ates, wrote this psalm and not David. 
Aii^aid I am of anything that approaches imprecation, 
and yet I can understand how anyone who has ever 
been at Jerusalem should, in enthusiasm of soul, cry 
out, whether he be sitting by the Euphrates, or the 
Hudson or the Thames, '-If I forget thee, O Jeru- 
salem, may my right hand forget her cunning I " 
You see, it is a city unlike all others for topography, 
for history, for significance, for style of population, for 
water-works, for ruins, for towers, for domes, for ram- 
parts, for literature, for tragedies, for memorable 
birth-places, for sepulchers, for conflagrations and 
famines, for victories and defeats. 

I am here at last in tins ver^^ Jerusalem and on a 
house-top. just after the dawn of the morning of 
December 3, with an old inhabitant to point out the 
salient features of the scenery. '''Now," I said, ''where 
is Mount Zion ? " Here at your right. '' Where is 
Zvlount Olivet?" ''In front of where you stand." 
" Where is the Garden of Gethsemane ? " In A^onder 
valley." "Where is Mount Calvary?" Before he 



186 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



answered, I saw it. IsTo unprejudiced mind can have 
a moment's doubt as to where it is. Yonder I see a 
hill in the shape of a human skull, and the Bible says 
that Calvary was the^' place of a skull/' Not only 
is it skull-shaped, but just beneath the forehead of 
the hill is a cavern that looks like eyeless sockets. 
Within the grotto under it is the shape of the inside 
of a skull. Then the Bible says that Christ was 
crucified outside the gate, and this is outside the gate^, 
while the site formerly selected was inside the gate. 
Besides that, this skull hill was for ages the place 
where malefactors were put to death, and Christ w^as 
slain as a malefactor. 

The Saviour's assassination took place beside a 
thoroughfare along which people went wagging 
their heads," and there is the ancient thoroughfare. I 
saw at Cairo, Egypt, a clay mould of that skull hill, 
made by the late General Gordon, the arbiter of 
nations. While Empress Helena, eighty years of age 
and imposed upon, hy having three crosses exhumed 
before her dim eyes, as though they were the three 
crosses of Bible story, selected another site as Calvary, 
all recent travelers agree that the one I point out to 
you was, without doubt, the scene of the most terrific 
and overwhelming tragedy this planet ever witnessed. 

There were a thousand things we wanted to see that 
third day of December, and our dragoman proposed 
this and that and the other journey, but I said : 
" First of all show us Calvary. Something might 
happen if we went elsewhere, and sickness or accident 
might hinder our seeing the sacred mount. If we see 
nothing else we must see that, and see it this morning.'' 
Some of us in carriage and some on mule-back, we 
were soon on the way to the most sacred spot that 
the world has ever seen or ever will see. Coming to 



ON HOUSE-TOP IN JERUSALEM. 



187 



the base of the hill we first went inside the skull of 
rocks. It is called Jeremiah's Grotto, for there the 
prophet wrote his book of Lamentations. The grotto 
is thirty-five feet higii and its top and side are mala- 
chite, green, brown, black, white, red, and gray. 

Coming forth from those pictured subterraneous 
passages, we begin to climb the steep sides of Calvary. 
As we go up, we see cracks and crevices in the rocks 
which I think were made hy the convulsions of nature 
when Jesus died. On the hill lay a limestone rock, 
white but tinged with crimson, the white so suggest- 
ive of purity and the crimson of sacrifice, that I said. 

That stone would be beautifully appropriate for a 
memorial wall in my church, now building in America; 
and the stone now being brought on camel's back 
from Sinai across the desert, when put under it, how 
significant of the law and the Gospel ! And these lips 
of stone will continue to speak of justice and mercy 
long after all our living lips have uttered their last 
message." So I rolled it down the hill and transported 
it. When that day comes^for which many of 3"ou have 
pra3"ed — the dedication of the Brooklj^n Tabernacle, 
the third immense structure we have reared in this 
city, and that makes it somewhat difficult being the 
third structure, a work such as no other church was 
ever called on to undertake — we invite 3^ou in the main 
entrance of that building to look upon a memorial wall 
containing the most suggestive, and solemn and tre- 
mendous antiquities ever brought together; this, rent 
with the earthquake at the giving of the law at Sinai, 
the other end rent at the crucifixion on Calvary. 

It is impossible for you to realize what our emotions 
were as we gathered, a group of men and women, all 
saved by the blood of the Lamb, on a blufi of Calvar^^, 
just wide enough to contain three crosses. I said to my 



188 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



family and friends : " I think here is where stood the 
cross of the impenitent burglar, and there the cross of 
the miscreant, and here between, I think, stood the 
cross on which all our hopes depend.'^ As I opened the 
nineteenth chapter of John to read, a chill blast struck 
the hill and a cloud hovered, the natural solemnity im- 
pressing the spiritual solemnity. I read a little, but 
broke down. I defy any emotional Christian man sit- 
ting- upon Golg-otha to read aloud and with unbroken 
voice, or with ^ny voice at all, the whole of that account 
in Luke and John of which these sentences are a 
fragment : " They took Jesus and led him away, 
and he, bearing his cross, went forth into a place 
called the place of a skull, where they crucified him 
and two others with him, on either side one, and Jesus 
in the midst " ; Behold thy mother ! " thirst " ; 
*^This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise^'; 

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do " ; 

If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.'' What 
sighs, what sobs, what tears, what tempests of sorrow, 
what surging oceans of agony in those utterances ! 

While we sat there, the whole scene came before us. 
All around the top and the sides and the foot of the 
hill a mob raged. They gnash their teeth and shake 
their clenched fists at Him. Here the cavalry horses 
champ their bits and paw the earth and snort at the 
smell of the carnage. Yonder a group of gamblers are 
pitching up as to who shall have the coat cf the dying 
Saviour. There are women almost dead with grief 
among the crowd, his mother and his aunt, and some 
whose sorrov/s He had comforted, and whose guilt He 
had pardoned. Here a man dips a sponge into sour 
wine, and b^^ a stick lifts it to the hot and cracked lips. 
The hemorrhage of the five wounds has done its Vvork. 
The atmospheric conditions are such as the world saw 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP IN JERUSALEM. 



189 



never before or since. It was not a solar eclipse, such 
as astronomers record or we ourselves have seen. It 
was a bereavement of the heavens I Darker ! Until 
the towers of the temple were no longer visible. 
Darker ! Until the surrouncliug hills disappeared. 
Darker I Until the inscription above the middle cross 
becomes illegible. Darker ! Until the chin of the d3^ing 
Lord falls upon the breast, and he sigiis w^ith this last 
sigh the words, " It is finished I " 

As we sat there a silence took possession of us and 
we thought : This is the center from which continents 
have been touched and all tlie world shall 3^et be moved. 
Toward this hill the prophets pointed forward. To- 
ward this hill the apostles and martyrs pointed back- 
ward. To this all Heaven pointed downward. To this 
with foaming execrations perdition pointed upward. 
Round it circles all history, all time, all eternity, and 
with this scene painters have covered the mightiest 
canvas, and sculptors cut the richest marble, and 
orchestras rolled their grandest oratorios, and church- 
es lifted their greatest doxologies, and Heaven built its 
highest thrones. 

Unable longer to endure the pressure of this scene, 
we moved on, and into a garden of olives, a garden 
which in the right season is full of flow^ers, and here is 
the reputed tomb of Christ. You know the Book says, 
' ' In the midst of the garden w^as a sepulcher. " I think 
this was the garden, and this the sepulcher. It is shat- 
tered, of course. About four steps down we went into 
this, which seemed a family tomb. There is room in it 
for about five bodies. We measured it and found it 
about eight feet high, and nine feet wide, and fourteen 
feet long. The cr3'pt where I think our Lord slept was 
seven feet long. I think that there once lay the King 
wrapped in his last slumber. On some of these rocks 



190 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



the Roman government set its seal. At the gate of 
this mausoleum on the first Easter morning*, the angels 
rolled the stone thundering down the hill. Up these 
steps walked the lacerated feet of the Conqueror, and 
from these heights he looked olf upon the city that had 
cast him out, and upon the world he had come to re- 
deem and at the heavens through which he would 
soon ascend. 

But we must hasten back to the city. There are 
stones in the wall which Solomon had lifted. Stop 
here and see a startling proof of the truth of prophec3^ 
In Jeremiah, 21st chapter and 40th verse, it is said 
that Jerusalem shall be built through the ashes. 
What ashes? people have been asking. Were those 
ashes just put into the prophecy to fill up ? No ! 
the meaning has been recently discovered. Jerusalem 
is now being built out in a certain direction where the 
ground has been submitted to chemical analj^sis and it 
has been found to be the ashes cast out from the 
sacrifices of the ancient temple, ashes of the wood and 
ashes of the bones of animals. There are great 
mounds of ashes, accumulation of centuries of sacri- 
fices. It has taken all these thousands of years to 
discover what Jeremiah meant when he said, '^Behold 
the days shall come, saith the Lord, that the city shall 
be built to the Lord from the tower of Hananeel unto 
the gate of the corner, and the whole valley of the 
dead bodies and of the ashes. ^' The people of Jerusa- 
lem are at this very time fulfilling that prophecy. 
One handful of that ashes on which they are building 
is enough to prove the divinity of the Scriptures ! 
Pass by the place where the cornerstone of the ancient 
temple was laid three thousand years ago by Solomon. 
Explorers have been digging, and they found that 
cornerstone seventy-five feet beneath the surface. It is 



ox THE HOUSE-TOP IX JERUSALEM. 191 



fourteen feet long^ and three feet eight mches high, 
and beautifully cut and shaped, and near it was an 
earthen jar that v\-as supposed to have contained the 
oil of consecration used at the ceremony of laying 
the cornerstone. Yonder, from a depth of forty feet, 
a signet ring has heen brought up inscribed with the 
words, ^^Haggai, the son of Shebnaiah,'' showing it 
belonged to the prophet Haggai, and to that seal ring 
he refers in his prophecy, saying, I will make thee 
as a signet.' ' I walk further on far under ground, and 
I find myself in Solomon's stables, and see the places 
worn in the stone pillars by the halters of some of his 
twelve thousand horses. Further on, look at the pillars 
on which Motmt I^vloriah was built. You knovv" that 
the mountain was too small for the temple, and so they 
built the mountain out on pillars, and I saw eight of 
those pillars, each one strong enough to hold a 
mountain. 

Here we enter the Mosque of Omar, a throne of 
Mohammedanism, where we are met at the door by 
officials who bring slippers that we must put on before 
Ave take a step further, lest our feet pollute the sacred 
places. A man attempting to go in without these 
slippers would be struck dead on the spot. These 
awkward sandals adjusted as vrell as we could, Ave are 
led to where Ave see a rock AAuth an opening in if, 
through AA'hich, no doubt, the blood of sacrifice in the 
ancient temple rolled down and aAvay. At A'ast 
expense the mosque has been built, but so somber is 
the place I am glad to get through it and take off the 
cumbrous slippers, and step into the clear air. 

Yonder is a curA'e of stone which is part of a bridge 
which once reached from Mount Moriah to Mount Zion, 
and over it DaAud AA'alked or rode to prayers in the 
temple. Here is the wailmg place of the Jews, AA'here 



192 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



for centuries almost perpetually during- the day-time, 
whole generations of the Jews have stood putting 
their head or lips against the wall of what was once 
Solomon's temple. It was one of the saddest and most 
solemn and impressive scenes I ever witnessed to see 
scores of these descendants of Abraham, with tears 
rolling down their cheeks, and lips trembling with 
emotion, a book of psalms open before them, bewailing 
the ruin of the ancient temple and the captivity of 
their race, and crying to God for the restoration of 
the temple in all its original splendor. Most affecting 
scene I And such a pra3^er as that, century after cen- 
tury, I am sure God will answer, and in some way the 
departed grandeur will return, or something better. 
I looked over the shoulders of some of them and saw 
that they were reading from the mournful psalms of 
David, while I have been told that this is the litany 
which some chant : 

*^For the temple that lies desolate , 

We sit in solitude and mourn ; 
For the palace that is destroyed, 

We sit in solitude and mourn ; 
For the walls that are overthrown, 

We sit in solitude and mourn ; 
For our majesty that is departed, 

We sit in solitude and mourn ; 
• For our great men that lie dead, 

We sit in solitude and mourn ; 
For priests who have stumbled, 

We sit in solitude and mourn." 

I think at that pra^^er Jerusalem will come again to 
more than its ancient magnificence. It may not be 
precious stones and architectural majesty, but in a 
moral splendor that shall eclipse forever all that David 
or Solomon saw. 
But I must get back to the house-top where I stood 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP IN JERUSALEM. 



193 



earl}" this morniiig*^ and before the sun sets, that I 
ma3^ catch a wider vision of what the cit^^ now is and 
once was. Standing- here on the house-top, I see that 
the city was huilt for miUtary safety. Some old 
warrior, I vrai^rant, selected the spot. It stands on a 
hill twenty-six hundred feet above the level of the sea, 
and deep ravines on three sides do the work of militarj^ 
trenches. Compact as no other city was compact. 
Onl}" three miles journey round, and the three ancient 
towers, Hippicus, Phasaelus, Mariamne, frowning- 
death upon the approach of all enemies. 

As I stood there on the house-top in the midst of the 
city, I said, O Lord, reveal to me this metropolis of 
the world, that I may see it as it once appeared. No 
one was with me, for there are some thing-s^^ou can see 
more vividly Avith no one but God and \'ourself present. 
Immediately the Mosque of Omar, which has stood for 
ages on Mount Moriah, the site of the ancient temple, 
disappeared and the most honored structure of all 
the ages lifted itself in the light and I saw it— the 
temple, the ancient temple ! Not Solomon's tem- 
ple, but some things grander than that. Not Zer- 
ubbabel's temple, but something more gorgeous than 
that. It was Herod's temple built for the one pur- 
pose of eclipsing all its architectural predecessors. 
There it stood, covering nineteen acres, and ten tht)u- 
sand workmen had been forty-six years m building it. 
Blaze of magnificence ! Bewildering range of porticoes, 
and ten gateways, and double arches, and Corinthian 
capitals chiseled into lilies and acanthus. Masonry 
beveled and grooved into such delicate forms that it 
seemed to tremble in the light. Cloisters with two 
rows of Corinthian columns, ro^^al arches, marble steps 
pure as though made out of frozen snow, carving that 
seemed like a panel of the door of Heaven let down and 



194 



SERMONB ON THE HOLY LAND. 



set in, the fagade of the building* on shoulders at each 
end lifting the glory higher and higher, and walls 
wherein gold put out the silver, and the carbuncle put 
out the gold, and the jasper put out the carbuncle, un- 
til in the changing light they would all seem to come 
back again into a chorus of harmonious color. The 
temple ! The temple ! Doxology in stone ! Antheifis 
soaring in rafters of Lebanon cedar ! From side to side 
and from foundation to gilded pinnacle, the frozen 
prayer of all ages ! 

From this house-top on the December afternoon we 
look out in another direction and I see the King's pal- 
ace covering a hundred and sixtj^ thousand square feet, 
three rows of windows illumining the inside brilliance, 
the hallway wainscoted with all styles of colored 
marbles surmounted by arabesque, vermillion and gold, 
looking down on mosaics, music of waterfalls in the 
garden outside answering the music of the harps 
thrummed by deft fingers inside ; banisters over which 
princes and princesses leaned, and talked to kings and 
queens ascending the stairwaj^ O Jerusalem, Jerusa- 
lem ! Mountain city ! City of God ? Joy of the whole 
earth I Stronger than Gibraltar and Sebastopol, surely 
it never could have been captured. 

But while standing there on the house-top that 
December afternoon,! hear the crash of the twenty -three 
mighty sieges which have come against Jerusalem in 
the ages past. Yonder is the pool of Hezekiah and 
Siloam, but a.gain and again were those waters red- 
dened with human gore. Yonder are the towers, but 
again and again they fall. Yonder are the high walls, 
but again and again they were leveled. To rob the 
treasures from her temple and palace and dethrone this 
queen city of the earth, all nations plotted. David 
taking the throne at Hebron decides that he must have 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP IN JERUSALEM. 



195 



Jerusalem for his capital, and, coming up from the 
south at the head of two hundred and eighty thousand 
troops, he captures it. Look, here comes another siege 
of Jerusalem ! The Assyrians under Sennacherib, en- 
slaved nations at his chariot wheel, having taken two 
hundred thousand captives in his one campaign, Phoe- 
nician cities kneeling at his feet. Egypt trembling at 
the flash of his svv^ord, comes upon Jerusalem. Look, 
another siege ! The armies of Bab^^lon under Nebu- 
chadnezzar come down and take plunder from Jerusalem 
such as no other city had to yield, and ten thousand of 
her citizens trudge off into Babylonian bondage. Look, 
another siege ! and Nebuchadnezzar and his hosts by 
night go through a breach of the Jerusalem wall, and 
the morning finds some of them seated triumphant in 
the temple, and what they could not take away because 
too heavy, they break up — the brazen sea, and the two 
wreathed pillars, Jachin and Boaz. 

Another siege of Jerusalem : and Pompey v/ith the 
battering-rams which a hundred men would roll back, 
and then at full run forward would bang against the 
wall of the cit^^, and catapults hurling the rocks upon 
the people, left tvfelve thousand dead, and the city in 
the clutch of the Roman war eagle. Look, a more 
desperate siege of Jerusalem ! Titus with his tenth 
legion on Mount of Olives, and ballista, arranged on 
the principle of the pendulum to swing- great boulders 
against the walls and towers, and miners digging under 
the city making galleries of beams underground which, 
set on fire, tumbled great masses of houses and human 
beings into destruction and death. All is taken now 
but the temple, and Titus, the conqueror, wants to save 
that unharmed, but a soldier, contrary to orders, hurls 
a torch into the temple and it is consumed. Many 
strangers were in the city at the time and ninety-seven 



196 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



thousand captives were taken, and Josephus says one 
million one hundred thousand lay dead. 

But looking- from this house-top, the siege that most 
absorbs us is that of the Crusaders. England, and 
France, and all Christendom, wanted to capture the 
Holy Sepulcher and Jerusalem, then in possession of 
the Mohammedans, under the command of one of the 
loveliest, bravest, and mig-htiest men that ever lived, 
for justice must be done him though he was a Moham- 
medan — glorious Saladin ! Against him came the ar- 
mies of Europe, under Eichard Coeur de Lion, King of 
England ; Philip Augustus, King of France; Tancred, 
Raymond, Godfrey, and other valiant men, marching 
on through fevers, and plagues, and battle charges, 
and sufferings as intense as the world ever saw. 
Saladin in Jerusalem, hearing of the sickness of King 
Richard, his chief enemy, sends him his own physician, 
and from the walls of Jerusalem seeing King Richard 
afoot, sends him a horse. With all the world looking 
on, the armies of Europe come within sight of Jerusa- 
lem. At the first glimpse of the city they fall on their 
faces in reverence, and then lift anthems of praise. 
Feuds and hatred among themselves were given up, 
and Raymond and Tancred, the bitterest rivals, em- 
braced while the armies looked on. Then the bat- 
tering-rams rolled, and the catapults swung, and the 
swords thrust, and the carnage raged. Godfrey of 
Bouillon is the first to mount the wall and the cru- 
saders, a cross on every shoulder or breast, having 
taken the city, march bareheaded and barefooted to 
what they suppose to be the Holy Sepulcher, and kiss 
the Tomb. Jerusalem the possession of Christendom. 
But Saladin retook the city, and for the last four hun- 
dred years it has been in possession of cruel and pol- 
luted Mohammedanism ! 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP IN JERUSALEM. 



197 



Another crusade is needed to start for Jerusalem, a 
crusade in this nineteenth century greater than all 
those of the past centuries put together. A crusade in 
which you and I will march. A crusade without 
weapons of death, hut only the svrord of the Spirit. 
A crusade that will make not a single wound, nor start 
one tear of distress, nor incendiarize one homestead. 
A crusade of Gospel Peace I And the cross again be 
lifted on Calvar^^, not as once, an instrument of pain, 
but a signal of mvitation, and the Mosque of Omar 
shall give place to a church of Christ, and Mount 
Zion become the dwelling-place not of David, but of 
David's Lord, and Jerusalem, purified of all its idol- 
atries, and taking back the Christ she once cast out, 
shall be made a worthy type of that heavenly city 
Tvhich Paul styled " the mother of us all/'' and which 
St. John saw, ^^the holy Jerusalem descending out of 
Heaven from God." Through its gates may we all 
enter when our work is done, and in its temple, greater 
than all the earthly temples piled in one, may we 
w^orship. Russian pilgrims lined all the roads around 
the Jerusalem we visited last winter. They had 
walked hundreds of miles, and their feet bled on the 
way of Jerusalem. Many of them had spent their last 
farthing to get there, and they had left some of those 
who starved with them dying or dead by the roadside. 
An aged woman, exhausted with the long way, begged 
her fellow-pilgrims not to let her die until she had seen 
the Holy City. As she came to the gate of the city 
she could not take another step, but she was carried 
in, and then said, " Xovv' hold my head up till I can 
look upon Jerusalem," and her head lifted, she took one 
look and said : ''^Xovv' I die content. I have seen it ! I 
have seen it." Some of us, before we reach the heavenly 
Jerusalem, may be as tired as tliat, but angels of mercy 



198 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



will help us in, and one g-limpse of the Temple of God 
and the Lamb, and one good look at the " King- in his 
beauty" will more than compensate for all the toils 
a»d tears and heartbreaks of the pilgrimage. Halle- 
lujah ! Amen ! 



THE JOURNEY FROM JERUSALEM 
TO JERICHO. 



A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho." — 
Luke X., 30. 



It is morning in Jerusalem, and we take stirrups for 
the road along which the wa^^farer of old fell among 
thieves, who left him wounded and half dead. Job's 
picture of the horse in the Orient, as haviug neck 

clothed with thunder/' is not true of most horses 
now in Palestine. There is no thunder on their neck, 
though there is some lightning in their heels. Poorly 
fed and unmercifully whacked, they sometimes retort. 
To Americans and English, who are accustomed to 
guide horses hy the bridle, these horses of the Orient, 
guided only by foot and voice, make equestrianism an 
uncertainty, and the pull on the bridle that you intend 
for slowing up of the pace ma^^ be mistaken for a hint 
that 3"ou intend to outgallop the wind or wheel in swift 
circles like the hawk. But the^^ can climb steeps and 
descend precipices with skilled foot; and the one I 
chose for our journey in Palestine shall have the praise 
of going for weeks without one stumbling step, amid 
rocky steeps where an ordinary horse would not for an 
hour maintain sure-footedness. There were eighteen 
of our party, and twenty- two beasts of burden carried 
our camp equipment. We are led by an Arab sheik 
with his black Nubian servant carr3ang a loaded gun 
in full sight ; but it is the fact that this sheik represents 



200 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



the Turkish g-overnment, which assures the safety of 
the caravan. 

We cross the Jehoshaphat valley, which, if it had ^ 
not been memorable in history, and were only now 
discovered, w^ould excite the admiration of all who look 
upon it. It is like the gorg-es of the Yosemite or the 
chasms of Yellowstone Park. The sides of this Jehosh- 
aphat valley are tunneled with g-raves and overlooked 
by Jerus^ilem walls — an eternity of depths overshad- 
owed by an eternity of architecture. Within sig'ht of 
Mount Olivet and Gethsemane, and with the heavens 
and the earth full of sunshine, we start out on the very 
road mentioned in the text, when it says : A certain 
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell 
among" thieves." No road that I ever saw was so well 
constructed for brigandage — deep gulleys, sharp turns, 
caves on either side. There are fifty places on this 
road where a highwayman might surprise and over- 
power an unarmed pilg-rim. His cry for help, his 
shriek of pain, his death-g-roan, would be answered 
only by the echoes. On this road to-day we met g-roups 
of men who, judging" from their countenances, have in 
their veins the blood of many generations of Eob Roys. 
Josephus says that Herod at one time discharged from 
the service of the temple forty thousand men, and 
that the great part of them became robbers. So late 
as 1820, Sir Frederick Henniker, an English tourist, 
was attacked on this very road from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, and shot and almost slain. There has never 
been any scarcity of bandits along the road we travel 
to day. 

With the fresh memory of some recent violence in 
their minds, Christ tells the people of the good Samari- 
tan who came along that way and took care of a poor 
fellow that had been set upon by villainous Arabs, and 



JOURNEY FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO. 201 



robbed, and pounded and cut. AVe encamped for 
lunch that noon close by an old stone building", said to 
be the tavern where the scene spoken of in the Bible 
culminated. Tumbled in the dust and ghastly with 
wounds, the victim of this highway robbery lay in the 
middle of the road — a fact of which I am certain, be- 
cause the Bible says the people passed by on either 
side. There were twelve thousand priests living at 
Jericho and they had to go to Jerusalem to officiate at 
the temple. And one of these ministers of religion, I 
suppose, was on his way to the temple sejwice and he is 
startled as he sees this bleeding victim in the middle 
of the road. ^^Oh,'' he says. here is a man tliat has 
been attacked of thieves." '-'Why don't you go 
home ? *" says the minister. The man in a comatose 
state, makes no answer, or, with a half-dazed look, puts 
his wounded hand to his gashed forehead and drawls 
out ^' What ? *' ^'Well, *' says the minister, ^* I must 
hurrj^ on to my duties at Jerusalem. I have to kill a 
lamb and two pigeons in sacrifice to-day. I cannot 
spend any more time with this unfortunate. I guess 
somebody" else will take care of him. But this is one 
of the things that cannot be helped, anyhow. Besides 
that, my business is with souls and not with bodies. 
Good morning I . AVhen you get well enough to sit up, 
I will be glad to see yon at the temx^le.*' And the . 
minister curves his way out toward the overhanging 
sides of the road and passes. You hypocrite ! One 
of the chief offices of religion is tg heal wounds. You. 
might have done here a kindness that would been 
more acceptable to God than all the incense that Avill 
smoke up from your censer for the next three weeks, 
and you missed the chance. Go on your way I Exe- 
crated by the centuries . 
Soon afterward a Levite came upon the scene. The 



202 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Levites looked after the music of the temple and 
waited upon the priests and provided the supplies of 
the temple. This Levite, passing along this road where 
we are to-day, took a look at the mass of bruises and 
laceration in the middle of the road. ^^My! my I 
says the Levite, ^'this man is awfully hurt and he 
ought to be helped. But my business is to sing in the 
temple. If I am not there, no one will carry my part. 
Besides that, there may not be enough frankincense 
for the censers and the wine or oil may have given out, 
and what a fearful balk in the service that would 
make. Then one of the priests might get his breast- 
plate on crooked. But it seems too bad to leave this 
man in this condition. Perhaps I had better try to 
staunch this bleeding and give him a little stimulant. 
But, no ! The ceremony at Jerusalem is of more im- 
portance than taking care of the wounds of a man 
'who will probabl}^ soon be dead, anyhow. This high- 
way robbery ought to be stopped, for it hinders us 
Levites on our way up to the temple. There, I have 
lost five minutes already ! Go along you beast ! " he 
shouts as he strikes his heels into the sides of the 
animal carrying him, and the dust rising from the 
road soon hides the hard-hearted official. 

But a third person is coming along this road. You 
cannot expect him to do anything by way of alleviation, 
because he and the wounded man belong to different 
nations which have abominated each other for cen- 
turies. The wounded man is an Israelite, and the 
stranger now coming on this scene of suffering is a 
Samaritan. They belong to nations which hated each 
other with an objurgation and malediction diabolic. 
They had opposition temples, one on Mount Gerizim 
and the other on Mount Moriah, and I guess this Sa- 
maritan when he comes up will give the fallen Israelite 



JOURNEY FROM JERtJSALEM TO JERICHO. 203 

another clip and say : " Good for you ! I will just fin- 
ish the work these bandits beg'an^ and give 3^0 u one 
more kick that will put 3^ou out of 3^our miser3^ And 
here is a rag' of 3^our coat that thej^ did not steal, and I 
will take that. What ! Do you dare to appeal to me 
for mercy ? Hush up I Why, your ancestors wor- 
shiped at Jerusalem when they ought to have wor- 
shiped at Gerizim. Now take that ! And that I 
And that ! will say the Samaritan as he pounds the 
fallen Israelite. 

No ; the Samaritan rides up to the scene of suffering*, 
g'ets off the beast and steps down and looks into the 
face of the w^ounded man and says : This poor fellow 
does not belong* to my nation, and our ancestors wor- 
shiped in different places, but he is a man, and that 
makes us brothers. God pity him, as I do ! " And 
he gets down on his knees and begins to examine his 
wounds, and straighten out his limbs to see if an^^ of 
his bones are broken, and says : " Isly dear fellow, 
cheer up, 3^ou need have no more care about yourself, 
for I am going to take care of you. Let me feel of 3^our 
pulse ! Let me listen to j^our breathing ! I have in 
these bottles two liquids that will help you. The one 
is oil, and that will soothe the pain of these wounds, and 
the other is wine, and your pulse is feeble and you feel 
faint, and that will stimulate you. Now I must get 
yow to the nearest tavern. " Oh, no,'^ saj^s the man, 
'^I can't walk; let me stay here and die." Non- 
sense ! " says the Samaritan. You are not going to 
die. I am going to put 3"ou on this beast, and I will 
hold you on till I get you to a place where you can ha ve 
a soft mattress and an easy pillow." 

Now the Samaritan has got the wounded man on his 
feet, and with much tugging^ and lifting puts him on 
the beast, for it is astonishing how strong the spirit of 



204 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



kindness will make one, as you have seen a mother, 
after three weeks of sleepless watching of her boy, 
down with scarletfever, lift that half -grown boy, heav- 
ier than herself, from couch to lounge. And so this 
sympathetic Samaritan has, unaided, put the wounded 
man in the saddle, and at slow pace the extemporized 
ambulance is moving toward the tavern. ^^You feel 
better now, I think," says the Samaritan to the He- 
brew. " Yes,'' he says, I do feel better.'' Halloo, 
you landlord ! Help me carry this man in and make 
him comfortable." That night the Samaritan sat up 
with the Jew, giving him water whenever he felt thirsty 
and turning his pillow when it got hot, and in the 
morning before the Samaritan started on his journey, 
he said, Landlord, now I am obliged to go. Take 
good care of this man and I will be along here soon 
again and pay you for all you do for him. Meanwhile 
here is something to meet present expenses." The 
*'two pence " he gave the landlord sounds small, but 
it was as much as ten dollars here and now, consider- 
ing what it would there and then buy of food and 
lodging. 

As on that December noon we sat under the shadow 
of the tavern where this scene of mercy had occurred, 
and just having passed along the road where the 
tragedy had happened, I could, as plainly as I now 
see the nearest man to this platform, see that Bible 
story re-enacted, and I said aloud to our group under 
the tent : One drop of practical Christianity is worth 
more than a whole temple full of ecclesiasticism, and 
that good Samaritan had more religion in five minutes 
than that minister and that Levite had in a lifetime, 
and the most accursed thing on earth is national preju- 
dice, and I bless God that I live in America, where 
Gentile and Jew, Protestant and Catholic can live to- 



JOURNEY FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO. 205 



g-ether without quarrel, and where, in the great national 
crucible, the differences of sect, and tribe and people 
are being moulded into a great brotherhood, and that 
the question which the law^^er flung* at Christ, and 
which brought forth this incident of the good Samar- 
itan, * Who is my neighbor?' is bringing' forth the 
answer, ' My neighbor is the first man I meet in 
trouble,' and a wound close at hand calls louder than 
a temple seventeen miles off, though it covers nineteen 
acres. '^ 

I saw in London the vast procession which one day 
last January moved to St. Paul's Cathedral at the 
burial of that Christian hero, Lord Napier. The day 
after at Hawarden, in conversation on various themes, 
I asked Mr. Gladstone if he did not think that many 
who were under the shadow of false religions might 
not nevertheless be at heart realh^ Christian. Mr. 
Gladstone replied : Yes ; my old friend Lord Napier, 
who was yesterday buried, after he returned from his 
Abyssinian campaign, visited us here at Hawarden, 
and, walking in this park v\^here we are now walking, 
he told me a ver^^ beautiful incident. He said : ' After 
the w^ar in Africa vras over, we v\'ere on the march 
and we had a soldier with a broken leg who was not 
strong enough to go along with us and we did not 
dare to leave him to be taken care of by savages, but 
we found we were compelled to leave him, and we went 
into the house of a woman who was said to be a very ' 
kind woman, though of the race of savages, and we 
said : Here is a sick man, and if you will take care of 
him till he gets well we will pay 3'ou very largely," 
and then we offered her five times that which would 
ordinarily be offered, hoping by the excess of pay to se- 
cure for him great kindness. The Avoman replied : "1 
will not take care of him for the money you offer. I 



206 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



do not want your money. But leave him here, and I 
will take care of him for the sake of the love of 
God." ' Mr. Gladstone turned to me and said : Dr. 
Talmage, don't you think that though she belonged 
to a race of savages, that was pure religion ? And I 
answered : I do ; I do.'^ May God multiply all the 
world over the number of good Samaritans ! 

In Philadelphia a j^oung woman was dying. She 
was a wreck. Sunken into the depths of depravity 
there was no lower depth for her to reach. Word 
came to the midnight mission that she was djdng in 
a haunt of iniquity nearby. Who would go to tell 
her of the Christ of Mary Magdalen ? This one 
refused, and that one refused, saying, I dare not go 
there. A Christian woman, her white locks typical 
of her purity of soul, said, ^^I will go, and I will go 
now." She went and sat down by the d3ang girl, and 
told her of the Christ who came to seek and save that 
which was lost. First to the forlorn one came tears 
of repentance, and then the smile as though she had 
begun to hope for the pardon of Him who came to 
save to the uttermost. Then, just before she breathed 
her last, she said to the angel of mercy bending over 
her pillow: Would you kiss me?" ''I will," said 
the Christian woman, as she put upon her cheek the 
last salutation before in the heavenly world, I think, 
God gave her the welcoming kiss. That was religion ! 
Yes, that was religion. Good Samaritans along every 
street, and along every road, as well as this one on 
the road to Jericho. 

But our procession of sightseers is again in line, and 
here we pass through a deep ravine, and I cry to the 
dragoman: David, what place do you call this?" 
and he replied: ^^This is the brook Cherith, where 
Jilijah was fed by tUa raveas," AM In tliat answer 



JOtJRNEY FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO. 207 



he overthrew my life-long: notions of the place where 
Elijah was waited on hy the black servants of the sky. 
A brook to me had meant a slight depression of 
g-round, and a stream fordable, and perhaps fifteen 
feet wide. But here was a chasm that an earthquake 
must have scooped out with its biggest shovel or split 
with its mightiest battle-ax. Six hundred feet deep 
is it, 'c nd the brook Cherith is a river, which when in 
full force is a silver wedge, splitting the mountains 
into precipices. The feathered descendants of Elijah's 
ravens still wing their way across this ravine, but are 
not like the crows we supposed them to be. They are 
as large as eagles^ and one of them could carry in its 
beak and clenched claw at once enough food for a 
half dozen Elijahs. Xo thanks to the ravens; tlie^^ are 
carnivorous and would rather have picked out the eyes 
of Elijah, whom the}' found at the mouth of his cave on 
the side of Cherith, waiting for his breakfast, having 
drunk his morning beverage from the rushing stream 
beneath, than have been his butlers and purve^^ors. 
But God compelled them, as he always has compelled 
and alwaj^s will compel black and cruel and overshad- 
owing providences to carry help to his children if they 
only have faith enough to catch the blessing as it 
drops from the seeming adversity ; the greatest bless- 
ing always coming not vrith white wings, but black 
wings. Black wings of conviction bringing pardon to 
the sinner. Black wings of crucifixion over Calvary, 
bringing redemption for the world. Black wings of 
American revolution, bringing free institutions to a 
continent. Black wings of American civil war, bring- 
ing unification and solidaritj' to the republic. Black 
wings of the Judgment Day, bringing resurrection to 
an entombed human race. And in the last day, when 
all your life and mine w^ill be summed up, we will find 



208 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



that the greatest blessing we ever received came on 
the wings of the black ravens of disaster. Bless *God 
for trouble ! Bless God for sickness ! Bless God for 
persecution ! Bless God for poverty ! You never 
heard of any man or woman of great use to the world 
who had not had lots of trouble. The diamond must 
be cut. The wheat must be threshed. The bla(3k 
ravens must fly. Who are these nearest the throne ? 

These are they who came out of great tribulation, 
and had their robes washed and made white in the 
blood of the Lamb.'' 

But look ! Look what at four o'clock in the after- 
noon bursts upon our vision — the plain of Jericho and 
the valley of Jordan and the Dead Sea. We have come 
to a place where the horses not so much walk as slide 
upon their haunches, and we all dismount, for the steep 
descent is simply terrific, though a princess of Walla- 
chis, who fell here and was dangerously injured, after 
recovery, spent a large amount of money in trying to 
make the road passable. Down and down, till we saw 
the white tents pitched for us by our muleteers amid 
the ruins of ancient Jericho, which fell at the sound of 
poor music played on ram's horn," that ancient in- 
strument which, taken from the head of the leader of 
the flock of sheep, is perforated ana prepared to be fin- 
gered by the musical performer, and blown upon when 
pressed to the lips. As in another sermon I have fully 
described that scene, I will onl3^ say that every day for 
seven days the ministers of religion went round the 
city of Jericho, blowing upon those rams' horns, and on 
the seventh day, without the roll of a war-chariot, or 
the stroke of a catapult, or the swing of a ballista, 
crash ! crash ! crash ! went the walls of that magnifi- 
cent capital. 

On the evening of December the 6th we walked 



JOURNEY FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO. 209 



amid the brick and mortar of tliat shattered cit}',, 
aitd I said to myself : All this done by poor music 
blest of God, for it was not a harp, or a flute, or a clap- 
ping* cymbal, or an organ played, at the sound of which 
the city surrendered to destruction, but a rude instru- 
ment making rude music blest of God, to the demolition 
of that wicked place which had for centuries defied the 
Almighty. And I said, if all this was by the blessing 
of God on poor music, what mightier things could be 
done b}^ the blessing of God on good music, skillful mu- 
sic, Gospel music. If all the good that has alreadj^ 
been done by music were subtracted from the world, 
I believe three-fourths of its religion would be gone. 
The luUabys of mothers v;hich keep sounding on, 
though the lips which sang them forty years ago 
became ashes, the old hymns in log-cabin churches, 
and countr}^ meeting-houses, and psalms in Rouse's 
version in Scotch kirks, the anthem in English cathe- 
drals, the roll of organs that will never let Handel, or 
Haydn, or Beethoven die, the thrum of harps, the 
sweep of the bow across bass viols, the song of Sabbath- 
schools storming the heavens, the doxology of great 
assemblages — why, a thousand Jerichos of sin have b}' 
them all been brought down. 

Seated by the Avarmth of our camp-fires that evening- 
of December 6th, amid the bricks and debris of Jericho, 
and thinking what poor music has done and what 
mightier things could be accomplished by the blessings 
of God on good music, I said to myself : Ministers have 
been doing a grand work, and sermons have been 
blessed, but would it not be well for us to put more em- 
phasis on music ? Oh, for a campaign of Old Hun- 
dred I Oh, for a brigade of Z\Iount Pisgahs I Oh, for 
a cavahw charge of Coronations I Oh, for an army of 
Antiochs and St. Martins and Ariels I Oh, for enough 



210 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



orchestral batons lifted to marshal all nations ! As 
Jericho was surrounded by poor music for seven days 
and was conquered^ so let our earth be surrounded 
seven days by good Gospel music, and the round planet 
will all be taken for God. Not a wall of opposition, not 
a throne of tyranny, not a palace of sin, not an enter- 
prise of unrighteousness could stand the mighty throb 
of such atmospheric pulsation. Music ! It sounded at 
the laying of creation's cornerstone when the morning 
stars sang together. Music ! It will be the last rever- 
beration, when the archangers trumpet shall wake the 
dead. Music ! Let its full power be now tested to 
comfort and bless and arouse and save. 

While our evening meal is being prepared in the 
tents, we walk out for a moment to the ^' Fountain of 
Elisha," the one into which the prophet threw the salt, 
because the waters were poisonous and bitter, and lo ! 
they became sweet and healthy ; and ever since, with 
gurgle and laughter, they have rushed down the hill, 
and leaped from the rocks, the only cheerful object in 
all that region being these waters. 

Now on this plain of Jericho the sun is setting, 
making the mountains look like balustrades and 
battlements of amber and maroon and gold ; and the 
moon, just above the crests, seems to be a window of 
Heaven through which immortals might be looking 
dov/n upon the scene. Three Arabs as watchmen sit 
beside the camp-fire at the door of my tent, their low 
conversation in a strange language all night long a 
soothing rather than an interruption. I had a dream 
that night never to be forgotten, that dream amid the 
complete ruins of Jericho. Its past grandeur returned, 
and I saw the oitj as it was when Mark Antony gave 
it to Cleopatra and Herod bought it from her. And I 
heard the hoofs of its swift steeds, and the rumbling of 



JOURNEY FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO. 211 



its chariots and the shouts of excited spectators in its 
amphitheater. 

And there was white marble amid green groves of 
pahn and balsam : cold stone warmed with sculptured 
foliage : hard pillars cut into soft lace : Iliads and 
Odj^sseys in granite : basalt jet as the night, mounted 
by carbuncle flaming as the morning : upholster3^ 
dj^ed as though dipped in the blood of battle-fields : 
robes encrusted with diamond : mosaics white as sea- 
foam flashed on by auroras : gayeties whicli the sun 
saw by day, rivaled hy revels the moon saw by night : 
blasphemy built against the sky : ceilings stellar as the 
midnight heavens : grandeurs turreted, archivolted 
and intercolumnar wickedness so appalling that estab- 
lished vocabulary fails, and we must make an adjective 
and call it Herodic. 

The region round about the city walls seemed to me 
white wath cotton such as Thenius describes as once 
growing there, and sweet with sugar-cane, and luscious 
with oranges and figs and pomegranates, and redolent 
with such flora as can only grow w^here a tropical sun 
kisses the earth. And the hour came back to me when 
in the midst of all that splendor Herod died, command- 
ing his sister Salome immediately^ after his death to 
secure the assassination of all the chief Jews whom he 
had brought to the city, and shut up in a circus for 
that purpose, and the ncAvs came to the audience in the 
theater as someone took the stage, and announced to 
the excited multitude : Herod is dead I Herod is 
dead ! " Then in ni}^ dream, all the pomp of Jericho 
vanished and gloom was added to gloom, and desola- 
tion to desolation, and woe to woe, until, perhaps, the 
rippling waters or the Fountain of Elisha suggesting 
it — as sounds will sometimes give direction to a dream 
—I thought that the waters of Christ's salvation and 



212 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



the fountains '*^open for sin and uncleanness/' were 
rolling- through that plain and rolling across that con- 
tinent, and rolling round the earth, until on either 
side of their banks all the thorns became flowers, and 
all the deserts gardens, and all the hovels mansions, 
and all the funerals bridal processions, and all the 
blood of war was turned into dahlias, and all the 
groans became anthems, and Dante's " Inferno " 
became Dante's ^'Divina Commedia," and Paradise 
Lost " was submerged by Paradise Regained,'' an(5 
tears became crystals, and cruel swords came out of 
foundries glistening ploughshares, and, in my dream, 
at the blast of a trumpet the prostrate walls of Jericho 
rose again. And someone told me that as these walls 
in ^Joshua's time, at the sounding trumpets of doom 
went down, now at the sounding trumpet of the Gospel 
they come up again. And I thought a man appeared 
at the door of my tent, and I said : ^^Who are you 
and from whence have you come ? " and he said, " I am 
the Samaritan you heard of at the tavern on the road 
from Jerusalem to Jericho, as taking care of the man 
who fell among thieves, and I have just come from 
healing the last wound of the last unfortunate in all 
the earth. ^' And I rose from my pillow in the tent to 
greet him, and my dream broke, and I realized it was 
only a dream, but a dream which shall become a glori- 
ous reality as surely as God is true and Christ's Gospel 
is the world's Catholicon. '' Glory be to the Father, 
and to the Son, and to the Hol^'^ Ghost, as it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without 
end. Amen." 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AND 
THEY SMOKE. 



He toucheth the hills and they smoke.*'— Psalm civ., 32. 



David, the poet, here pictures a volcano, and what 
Church's Cotopaxi does on painter's canvas this 
author does in words. You see a hill calm and still, and 
for ages immovable, but the Lord out of the heavens 
puts his finger on the top of it, and from it rise thick 
vapors, intershot VN'ith fire. ^^He toucheth the hills 
and they smoke." 

God is the only being who can manage a volcano, 
and again and again has he emploj^ed volcanic action. 
The pictures on the walls of Pompeii, the exhumed 
Italian city, as we saw them last November, demon- 
strate that the city vras not fit to live. In the first 
century, that city, engirdled with palaces, empara- 
dised with gardens, pillared into architectui^al exquisite- 
ness, was at the foot of a mountain up the sides of 
Avhich it ran with vineyards and villas of merchant 
princes, and all that marble, and bronze, and imperial 
baths, and arboriculture, and rainbowed fountains, and 
a coliseum at the dedication of vrhich nine thousand 
beasts had been slain, and a supernal landscape in 
which the shore gave roses to the sea and the sea gave 
cr^^stals to the shore ; yes, all that beauty, and pomp, 
and wealth could give was there to be seen or heard. 
But the bad morals of the city had shocked the world. 
In the year 79^ on the -ith of August, a black column 



2U 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



rose above the adjoining- mountain and spread out, 
Plin}^ says, as he saw it, like a great pine tree, wider 
and wider, until it began to rain upon the cit\^, first 
thin ashes, and then pumice stone, and sulphurous 
fumes scooped, and streams of mud poured through the 
streets till few people escaped, and the city was buried, 
and some of the inhabitants eighteen hundred years 
after were found embalmed in the scoriae of that awful 
doom. The Lord called upon volcanic forces to obliter- 
ate that profligate city. He touched the hills and they 
smoked. 

Nothing but volcanic action can explain what I shall 
show you at the Dead Sea, upon which I looked last 
December, and of whose waters I took a bitter and 
stinging taste. Concerning all that region there has 
been controversy enough to fill libraries, science sa^^- 
ing one thing, revelation saying another thing. But 
admit volcanic action divinely employed and both 
testimonies are one and the same. Geology, chemistry, 
geography, astronomy, ichthyology, ornithology and 
zoology are coming one by one to confirm the Script- 
ures. Two leaves of one book are Revelation and 
Creation, and the penmanship is b}^ the same divine 
hand. Our horseback ride will not be so steep to-day, 
and you can stay on without clinging to the pommel of 
the saddle, but the scenes amid which we ride shall, if 
possible, be more thrilling, and by the time the horses 
snuff the sulphurous atmosphere of Lake Asphaltites, 
or the Dead Sea, we will be ready to dismount and read 
from our Bibles about what was done that day by the 
Lord when he touched the hills and they smoked. 

Take a detour and pass along by the rocky fortress 
of Masada, where occurred something more wonderful 
in the way of desperation than you have ever heard of, 
unless you have heard of that, Herod built a palace 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AND THEY SMOKE. 215 

amid these heaps of black and avrful rocks which look 
like a tumbled midnight. A great band of robbers, 
about one thousand, including- their families, afterward 
held the fortress. When the Roman army stormed 
that steep and the bandits could no longer hold the 
place, their chieftain, Eleazar, made a powerful speech 
which persuaded them to die before they were cap- 
tured. First the men kissed their families a loving and 
tearful good-bye, and then put a dagger into their 
hearts, and the women and the children were slain. 
Then ten men were chosen by lot to slay all the other 
men, and each man lay down by the dead wife and. 
children and waited for these executioners to do their 
work. This done, one man of the ten killed the other 
nine. Then the survivor committed suicide. Two 
women and five children had hid themselves, and after 
all was over came forth to tell of the nine hundred and 
sixty slaughtered. Great and rugged natural scenery 
makes the most tremendous natures for good or evil. 
Great statesmen and great robbers, great orators and 
great butchers, were nearly all born or reared among 
mountain precipices. Strong natures are hardly ever 
born upon the plain. When men have anything greath^ 
good or greatl}^ evil to do, they come down off the rocks. 

Pass on from under the shadow of Masada, the scene 
of concentrated diabolism, and come along where the 
salt crystals crackle under the horses' hoofs. You are 
near the most God-forsaken region of all the earth. 
You to whom the word lake has heretofore suggested 
those bewitchments of beauty, Luzerne or Cayuga, 
some great pearl set by a loving God in the bosom of 
the luxuriant valley, change all your ideas about a lake, 
and see this sheet of water which the Bible calls the 
Salt Sea or Sea of the Plain, and Josephus calls Lake 
Asphaltites. The muleteers will take care of the 



216 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

horses while we get down to the brink and dip up the 
liquid mixture in the palm of the hand. The w^aters 
are a commingling- of brimstone and pitch, and have 
six times larger percentage of salt than those of the 
Atlantic Ocean, the ocean having four per cent of salt, 
and this lake twenty-six and a quarter per cent. Lake 
Sir-i-kol of India is the highest lake in the world. This 
lake on the banks of which we kneel is the lowest lake. 
It empties into no sea, among other things, for the 
simple reason that water cannot run uphill. It swal- 
lows up the river Jordan, and makes no reponse of 
thanks, and never reports what it does with the twenty 
million cubic feet of water annually received from that 
sacred river. It takes the tree branches and logs float- 
ed into it by the Jordan and pitches them on the banks 
of bitumen to decay there. 

The hot springs near its banks by the name of Cal- 
lirhoCj where King Herod came to bathe ofl' his illnesses, 
no sooner pour into the sea than they are poisoned. 
Not a fish-scale swims it. Not an insect walks it. It 
hates life, and if you attempt to swim there it lifts you 
by an unnatural buoyancy to the surface, as much as 
to say, We w^ant no life here, but death is our pref- 
erence, death." Those who attempt to wade into this 
lake, and submerge themselves, come out almost 
maddened, as with the sting of a hundred wasps and 
hornets, and with lips and ej^elids swollen with the 
strange ablution. The sparkle of its waters is not like 
the sparkle of beauty on other lakes, but a metallic 
luster like unto the flash of a sword that would thrust 
you. The gazelles and the ibexes that live on the hills 
beside it, and the cranes and wild ducks that fly across 
• — for, contrary to the old belief, birds do safely wing 
their way over it — and the Arab horses you have been 
riding, though thirsty enough, will not drink out of 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AND THEY SMOKE. 217 

this dreadful mixture. A mist hovers over parts of it 
almost continually, which J though natural evaporation, 
seems like a wmg of doom spread over liquid desolation. 
It is the rinsings of abomination. It is an aqueous 
monster coiled among the hills, or creeping with 
ripples, and stenchful with nauseating malodors. 

In these regions once stood four great cities of As- 
syria : Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma and Zeboim. The 
Bible says they were destroyed by a tempest of fire 
and brimstone after these cities had filled up of wicked- 
ness. ^*No, that is absurd/' cries someone; ^^it is 
evident that this was a region of salt and brimstone 
and pitch, long before that." And so it was. The 
Bible says it was a region of sulphur long before the 
great catastrophe. ^'Well, now," says someone, 
wantmg to raise a quarrel between science and reve- 
lation, ^'you have no right to say the cities of the 
plain were destroyed by a tempest of fire and sulphur 
and brimstone, because this region had these charac- 
teristics long before these cities were destroyed." Vol- 
canic action is my reply. These cities had been built 
out of very combustible materials. The mortar was 
of bitumen easily ignited, and the walls dripped with 
pilch most inflammable. They sat, I think, on a ridge 
of hills. They stood high up and conspicuous, radiant • 
in their sins, ostentatious in their debaucheries, four 
hells on earth. One day there was a rumbling in the 
earth, and a quakiug. What's that? ^' cry the af- 
frighted inhabitants. '^What's that?" The foun- 
dations of the earth were giving way. A volcano, 
whose fires had been burning for ages, at God's com- 
mand burst forth, easily setting everything a-flame, 
and first lifting these cities high in the air, and then 
dashing them down in chasms fathomless. The fires 
of that eruption intershot the dense smoke, and rolled 



^18 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LANB. 

unto the heavens, only to descend again. And all the 
configuration of that country was changed, and where 
there was a hill there came a valley, and where there 
had been the pomp of uncleanness came widespread 
desolation. The red-hot spade of volcanic action had 
shoveled under the cities of the plain. Before the ca- 
tastrophe the cities stood on the top of the salt and 
sulphur. After the catastrophe they were under the 
salt and sulphur. Science right. Revelation right. 

He toucheth the hills and they smoke." 

No science ever frightened believers in Revelation so 
much as geology. They feared that the strata of the 
earth would contradict the Scriptures, and then Moses 
must go under. But as in the Dead Sea instance, so in 
all cases God's writing on the earth, and God's writing' 
in the Bible are harmonious. The shelves of rock corre- 
spond with the shelves of the American Bible Society. 
Science digs into the earth and finds deep down the 
remains of plants, and so the Bible announces plants 
first. Science digs down and says, ^'Marine animals 
next," and the Bible says, Marine animals next." 
Science digs down and says, *^ Land animals next, and 
the Bible responds, ^^Land animals next." ^'Then 
comes man ! " says science. Then comes man ! " rcr 
spends the Bible. Science digs into the regions about 
the Dead Sea, and finds result of fire, and masses of 
brimstone, and announces a wonderful geological for- 
mation. ^'Oh, yes," says the Bible: Moses wrote 
thousands of years ago ^ The Lord rained upon Sodom, 
and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord 
out of Heaven,' and David wrote, ^ He toucheth the 
hills and they smoke.' *' So I guess we will hold on to 
our Bibles a little longer. A gentleman in the ante- 
room of the White House, at Washington, having an 
appointment with Mr. Lincoln at five o'clock in the 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AND THEY SMOKE. 219 

morning', got there fifteen minutes e^vly, and asked 
the servant, Who is talldng* in the next room ? ^^It 
is the President, sir ! " Is anybod^^ with him ? " No, 
sir ; he is reading the Bible. He spends every morning* 
from four to five o'clock reading the Scriptures." 

My text implies that God controls volcanoes not 
with the full force of his hand, but with the tip of his 
finger. Etna, Stromboli, and Vesuvius fawn at His 
feet like hourids before the hunter. These eruptions of 
the hills do not belong to Pluto's realm as the ancients 
thought, but to the Divine dominions. Humboldt 
counted two hundred of them, but since then the Indian 
archipelago has been found to have nine hundred of 
these great mouthpieces. The}'^ are on ever^^ conti- 
nent and in all latitudes. That earthquake which 
shook all America about six or seven summers ago 
was only the raving around of volcanoes rushing 
against the sides of their rocky caverns trying to break 
out. They must come to the surface, but it will be at 
the Divine call. They seem reserved for the punish- 
ment of one kind of sin. The seven cities they have 
obliterated were celebrated for one kind of transgres- 
sion. Profligacj^ w^as the chief characteristic of the 
seven cities over which they put their smothering wing: 
Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabise, Adma, Zeboim, Sod- 
om and Gomorrah. If our American cities do not quit 
their profligacy, if in high and low^ life dissoluteness 
does not cease to be a joke and become a crime, if 
wealth^^ libertinism continues to find so many doors of 
domestic life open to its faintest touch, if Russian, and 
French, and American literature, steeped in pruriency, 
does not get banished from the news stands and ladies' 
parlors, God will let loose some of these suppressed 
monsters of the earth. And I tell these American 
cities that it will be more tolerable for .Sodom and 



220 SERMONS ON thFholy LA: 



Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment, whether that Day 
of Judgment be in this present century or in the clos- 
ing century of the earth's continuance. The volcanic 
forces are already in existence, but in the mercy of 
God they are chained in the kennels of subterraneous 
fires. Yet let profligac}^, whether it stagger into a 
lazaretto or sit on a commercial throne, whether it 
laugh in a faded shawl under the street gas-light or be 
wrapped in the finest array that foreign loom ever 
wrought or lapidary ever empearled, know right well 
that there is a volcano waiting for it, whether in do- 
mestic life, or social life, or political life, or in the 
foundations of the earth from which sprang out the 
devastations that swallowed the cities of the plain. 

He toucheth the hills and they smoke." 

But the dragoman was rejoiced when we had seen 
enough of this volcanic region of Palestine, and he 
gladly tightens the girths, for another march, around 
the horses, which are prancing and neighing for de- 
parture. We are off for the Jordan, only two hours 
away. We pass Bedouins whose stern features 
melt into a smile as we give them the salutation 
Salaam Aleikoum, Peace be with you," their smile 
sometimes leaving us in doubt as to whether it is 
caused by their gladness to see us or by our poor 
pronunciation of the Arabic. Oh, they are a strange 
race, those Bedouins : such a commingling of ruffian- 
ism and honor, of cowardice and courage, of cruelty 
and kindness ! When a band of them came down 
upon a party in which Miss Whately was travelings 
and were about to take pocketbooks and perhaps life, 
this lady sitting upon her horse took out her notebook 
and pencil and began to sketch these brigands, and 
seeing this composure the bandits thought it some- 
thing supernatural and fled. Christian womanliness or 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AND THEY SMOKE. 221 

manliness is all-conquering*. When Martin Luther 
was told that Duke George would kill him if he Avent 
to Leipsic, Luther replied^ ^'1 would go to Leipsic if it 
rained Duke Georges nine days." 

Now we come through reg-ions wiiere there are hills 
cut into the shape of cathedrals, with altar, and col- 
umn, and arch, and chancel, and pulpit and dome, and 
architecture of the, rocks that I think can hardly just 
happen so. Perhaps it is because God loves the Church 
so well, he builds in the solitudes of Yellowstone 
Park and Yosemite, and Switzerland, and Palestine, 
these ecclesiastical piles. And who knows but that 
unseen spirits may sometimes worship there ? Drago- 
man, when shall we see the Jordan ? " I asked. All the 
time we were on the alert, and looking through tama- 
risk and willows for the greatest river of all earth. The 
Mississippi is wider, the Ohio is deeper, the Amazon is 
longer, the Hudson rolls amid regions more pictur- 
esque, the Thames has more splendor on its banks, the 
Tiber sugg'ests more imperial procession, the Ilj^ssus 
has more classic memories, and the Mle feeds greater 
populations \)j its irrigation ; but the Jordan is the 
queen of rivers and runs through all the Bible, a silver 
thread strung like beads with heroics, and before night 
we shall meet on its banks Elijah and EUsha, and 
David, and Jacob, and Joshua, and John and Jesus. 

At last between trees I got a glimpse of a river, 
and said, ^^What is that?'' The Jordan!" was 
the quick reply. And all along the line which had 
been lengthened by other pilgrims, some from Amer- 
ica, and some from Europe, and some from Asia, the cry 
was sounded ''The Jordan I The Jordan I " Hundreds 
of thousands of pilgrims have chanted on its banks 
and bathed in its waters. Many of them dip a gown in 
the wave and wring it out and carry it home for their 



222 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LANB. 

own shroud. It is an impetuous stream and rushes 
on as thoug-h it were hastening to tell its story to the 
ages. Many an explorer has it whelmed^ and many a 
boat has it wrecked. Lieutenant Molineux had copper- 
bottomed crafts split upon its shelvings. Only one 
boat, that of Lieutenant Lynch, ever lived to sail the 
whole length of it. At the season when the snows on 
Lebanon melt, the rage of this stream is like the Cone- 
maugh when Johnstown perished, and the wild beasts 
that may be near run for the hills, explaining what 
Jeremiah sdbjs : Behold, he shall go up like a lion 
from the swelling of Jordan." No river so often 
changes its mind, for it turns and twists, traveling 
two hundred miles to do that which in a straight line 
might be done in sixty miles. Among banks now low, 
how high, now of rocks, now of mud, and now of sand, 
laving the feet of the terebinths and oleanders, and 
acacias, and reeds, and pistachios, and silver poplars. 
This river marries the Dead Sea to Lake Galilee, and 
did ever so rough a groom take the hand of so fair a 
bride ? 

This is the river which parted to let an army of tw^o 
million Israelites cross. Here the skilled major-gen- 
eral of the Syrian host at the seventh plunge dropped 
his leprosy, not only by miraculous cure, but suggest- 
ing to all ages that w^ater, and plenty of it, had much 
to do with the sanitary improvQment of the world. 
Here is where some theological students of Elisha's 
time were cutting trees with which to build a theo- 
logical seminary, and an ax-head, not sufficiently 
wedged to the handle, flew off into the river and sank, 
and the young man deplored not so much the loss of 
the ax-head, as the fact that it was not his own, and 
cried, ^^Alas! it was borrowed," and the prophet 
threw a stick into the river and, in defiance of the law 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AXD THEY SMOKE. 223 



of gTavitatioii. the iron ax-liead came to the surface 
and floated hke a cork upon the water^ and kept float- 
mg until the young' man caught it. A miracle per- 
formed to give one an opportunity to retui^n that which 
was borrowed, and a rehuke in all ages for those who 
borrow and never return, their bad habit in this inspect 
so established that it would be a miracle if they did 
return it. Yea, from the bank of this river Elijah 
took team of fire, showing that the most raging ele- 
ment is servant of the good, and that there is no need 
that a child of God fear am^thing; for, if the most 
destructive of all elements was that day fashioned into 
a vehicle for a departing^ saint, nothing can ever hurt 
you who love and trust the Lord. I am so glad that 
that chariot of Elijah was not made out of wood, or 
crystal, or anything ordinarily pleasant, but out of 
fire, and yet he went up without having so much as to 
fan himself. When, stepping from amid the foliage 
of these oleanders and tamarisks on the banks of 
the Jordan, he put his foot on the red step of the red 
equipage, and took the red reins of vapor in his hands, 
and spurred the galloping steeds toward the wide open 
gate of Heaven, it was a scene forever memorable. 
So the hottest afflictions of your life may roll you 
Heavenward. So the most burning persecutions, the 
most fiery troubles, may become uplifting. Only be 
sure that when you pull on the bits of fire, you drive 
up toward God, and not down towards the Dead Sea. 
"When Latimer and Ridley died at the stake, they went 
up in a chariot of fire. "When my friend. P. P. BHss, 
the Gospel singer, was consumed with the rail-train 
that broke through Ashtabula bridge, and then took 
flame, I said : Another Elijah gone up in a chariot 
of fire ! " 

Bui this river is a river of baptisms. Christ was 



224 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



here baptized and John baptized many thousands. 
Whether on these occasions the candidate for baptism 
and the officer of religion went into this river, and then, 
while both were standing*, the water was dipped in the 
hand of one and sprinkled upon the forehead of the 
other, or whether the entire form of the one baptized 
disappeared for a moment beneath the surface of the 
flood, I do not now declare. While I cannot think 
without deep emotion of the fact that my parents held 
me in infancy to the baptismal font in the old meeting- 
house at Somerville, and assumed vows on my behalf, 
I must tell you now of another mode of baptism 
observed in the river Jordan, on that afternoon in last 
December, the particulars of which I now for the first 
time relate. 

It was a scene of unimaginable solemnity. A com- 
rade in our Holy Land journey rode up by my side 
that day, and told me that a young man, who is now 
studying for the Gospel ministry, would like to be bap- 
tized by me in the river Jordan. I got all the facts I 
could concerning his earnestness and faith, and through 
personal examination made myself confident he was a 
worthy candidate. There were among our Arab at- 
tendants two robes not unlike those used for American 
baptistries, and these we obtained. As we were to 
have a large group of different nationalities present, 
I dictated to my daughter a few verses, and had copies 
enough made to allow all to sing. Our dragoman had 
a man familiar with the river wade through and across 
to show the depth and the swiftness of the stream and 
the most appropriate place for the ceremony. Then I 
read from the Bible the accounts of baptisms in that 
sacred stream, and implored the presence of the Christ 
on whose head the dove descended at the Jordan. 
Then, as the candidate and myself stepped into the 



HE TOUCHETH THE HILLS AND THEY SMOKE. 225 

waters, the people on the banks sang in full and re- 
sounding voice : 

^*0n Jordan's stormy banks I stand, 

And cast a wistful eye 
To Canaan's fair and happy land, 

Where my possessions lie. 
Oh, the transporting, rapturous scene 

That rises to my sight ; 
Sweet fields arrayed in living green, 

And rivers of delight." 

By this time we had reached the middle of the river. 
♦As the candidate sank under the floods and rose again 
under a baptism m the name of the Father and the Son 
and the Hoh^ Ghost, there rushed through our souls a 
tide of holy emotion such as we shall not probably feel 
again until we step into the Jordan that divides earth 
from Heaven. "Will those waters be deep ? Will those 
tides be strong ? No matter^ if Jesus steps in with us. 
Friends on this shore to help us off. Friends on the 
other shore to help us land. See ! They are coming 
dowm the hills on the other side to greet us. How well 
we know their step I How easil.y we distinguisli their 
voices I From bank to bank we hail them with tears 
and they hail us with palm branches. They saj' to us, 
<^ Is that you, father ? Is that you, mother? " and 
w^e answer by asking, ^^Is that you, my darling?" 
How near they seem, and how^ narrow the stream that 
divides us ! 

Could we but stand where Moses stood 

And view the landscape o'er. 
Not Jordan's stream nor Death's cold flood 

Could fright us from the shore." 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY. 



** I made me great works, I builded me houses, I planted rae 
vineyards, I made me gardens and orchards, and planted trees 
in them of all kinds of fruits; I made me pools of water to water 
therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." — Ecclesiastes 
ii., 4-6. - 



A spring" morning and before breakfast at Jerusa- 
lem : A king with robes snowy white, in chariot 
decked with gold, draw^n by eight horses, high-mettled, 
and housings as brilliant as if scolloj)ed out of the very 
sunrise, and like the winds for speed, followed by a 
regiment of archers on horseback with hand on gilded 
bow, and arrow^s with steel points flashing in the sun, 
clad from head to foot in Tyrian purple, and black 
hair sprinkled with gold dust, all dashing down the 
road, the horses at full run, the reins loose on their 
necks, and the crack of whips, and the halloo of the 
reckless cavalcade putting the miles at defiance. Who 
is it, and what is it ? King Solomon taking an outing 
before breakfast, from Jerusalem, to his gardens, and 
parks, and orchards, and reservoirs, six miles down 
the road towards Hebron. What a contrast between 
that and myself on that very road one morning, last 
December, going afoot, for our plain vehicle turned 
back for photographic apparatus forgotten, we on the 
way to find what is called Solomon's pools, the ancient 
water-works of Jerusalem, and the gardens of a king 
nearly three thousand 3^ears ago. We cross the aque- 
duct again and again, and here we are at the three 
great reservoirs, not ruins of reservoii*s, but the reser- 



SOLOMOX IX ALL HIS GLORY. 



22T 



voirs themselves, that Solomon built three millenniums 
ago for the purpose of catching the mountain streams, 
and passing them to Jerusalem to slake the thh^st of 
the citj' , and also to irrigate the most glorious range 
of gardens that ever bloomed with all colors, or 
breathed with all redolence, for Solomon was the 
greatest horticulturist, the greatest botanist, the 
greatest ornithologist, the greatest capitalist, the 
greatest scientist of his century. 

Come over the piles of gray rock, and here we are 
at the first of the three reservoirs, which are on three 
great levels, the base of the top reservoir higher than 
the top of the second, the base of the second reservoir 
higher than the top of the third, so arranged that the 
waters gathered from several sources above shall 
descend from basin to basin, the sediment of the water 
deposited in each of the three, so that by the time it 
gets down to the aqueduct which is to take it to Jeru- 
salem, it has had three filterings, and is as pure as 
when the clouds rained it. Wonderful specimens of 
masonry are these three reservoirs. The white cement 
fastening the blocks of stone together is now just as 
when the trov\-els three thousand years ago smoothed 
the layers. The highest reservoir 3S0 feet by '^'29 ; the 
second, 423 feet by 160 :-and the lowest reservoir 5S9 
feet by 169 : and deep enough and wide enough, and 
mighty enough to float an ocean steamer. 

On that December morning we saw the waters 
rolling down from reservoir to reservoir, and can well 
understand how in this neighborhood the imx3erial 
gardens were one great blossom and the orchard one 
one great basket of fruit, and that Solomon in his 
palace, writing the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, 
may have been dravring illustrations from what he had 
seen that very morning in the royal gardens when he 



^28 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



alluded to melons^ and mandrakes, and apricots, and 
g-rapes, and pomegranates, and figs, and spikenard, 
and cinnamon, and calamus, and cam phire, and apple 
trees among the trees of the wood,'' and the almond 
tree as flourishing^^ and the myrrh and frankincense, 
and represented Christ as " gone down into his gar- 
dens, and the beds of spices to feed in the gardens, and 
to gather lilies," and to ^^eyes like fish-pools,'' and to 
the voice of the turtle dove as heard in the land. I 
think it was when Solomon was showing the Queen of 
Sheba through these gardens that the Bible says of 
her: There remained no more spirit in her," She 
gave it up. 

But all this splendor did not make Solomon happy. 
One day, after getting back from his morning ride 
and before the horses had yet been cooled off and 
rubbed down by the royal equerry, Solomon w^rote 
the memorable words following my text, like a dirge 
played after a grand march, " Behold all was vanity 
and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under 
the sun." In other words, It don't pay ! " Would 
God that we might all learn the lesson that this world 
cannot produce happiness ! At Marseilles there is a 
castellated house on high ground, crowned with all 
that grove and garden can do, and the whole place 
looks out upon as enchanting a landscape as the world 
holds, water and hill clasping hands in a perfect be- 
witchment of scenery, but the owner of that place is 
totally blind, and to him all this goes for nothing, 
illustrating the truth that, whether one be physically 
or morally blind, brilliancy of surrounding cannot give 
satisfaction. But tradition says that when the wise 
men of the East " were being guided by the star on the 
way to Bethelehem, they, for a little while, lost sight 
of that star, and in despair and exhaustion came to a 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY, 



229 



well to drink, when, looking down into the well, they 
saw the star reflected in the water, and that cheered 
them, and they resumed their journe3% and I have the 
notion that though grandeur and pomp of surround- 
ings may not afford peace, at the well of God's conso- 
lation, close by, you maj^ find happiness, and the 
plainest cup at the well of salvation may hold the 
brightest star that ever shone from the heavens. 

Although these Solomonic gardens are in ruins, 
there are now growing there flowers that are to be 
found nowhere else in -the Holy Land. How do^ I ac- 
count for that ? Solomon sent out his ships and 
robbed the gardens of the whole earth for flowers and 
planted these exotics here, and these particular flowers 
are direct descendants of the foreign plants he im- 
ported. Mr. MeshuUam, a Christian Israelite, on the 
very site of these royal gardens, has in our day, by 
putting . in his own spade, demonstrated that the 
ground is only 'waiting for the right call to yield just 
as much luxuriance and splendor eighteen hundred 
years after Christ, as it yielded Solomon one thousand 
j^ears before Christ. So all Palestine is waiting to be- 
come the richest scene of horticulture, arboriculture, 
and agriculture. 

Recent travelers in the Holy Land speak of the 
rocky and stony surface of nearly all Palestine as an 
impassable barrier to the future cultivation of the soil. 
But if they had examined minutely the rocks and 
stones of the Holj^ Land, they would find that the^^ 
are being skeletonized and are being melted into the 
soil, and, being for the most part limestone, they 
are doing for that land what the American and English 
farmer does when, at great expense and fatigue, he 
draws his wagon-load of lime and scatters it on the 
fields for their enriciimeiit. The storms, the winters. 



230 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



the great midsummer heats of Palestine, by crumbling 
up and dissolving- the rocks, are graduallj^ preparing 
Palestine and Syria to yield a product like unto the 
luxuriant Westchester farms of New York, and Lan- 
caster County farms of Pennsylvania, and Somerset 
Countj^ farms of ISTew Jersey, and the other magnificent 
farm fields of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the opu- 
lent orchards of Maryland and California. Let the 
Turk be driven out and the American or Englishman 
or Scotchman go in, and Mohammedanism withdraw its 
idolatries, and pure Christianity build its altars, and 
the irrigation of which Solomon's pools was only a sug- 
gestion will make all that land from Dan to Beersheba 
as fertile and aromatic and resplendent as on the 
morning when the king rode out to his pleasure grounds 
in chariot so swift, and followed by mounted riders so 
brilliant that it v, as for speed like a hurricane followed 
by a cyclone. 

As I look upon this great aqueduct of Palestine, a 
wondrous specimen of ancient masonry, about seven 
feet high, two feet wide, sometimes tunneling the solid 
rock and then rolling its waters through stoneware 
pipes, an aqueduct doing its work ten miles before it 
gets to those three reservoirs, and then g-athering their 
v/ealth of refreshment and pouring it on, to the mighty 
city of Jerusalem and filling the brazen sea of her tem- 
ple, and the bathrooms of her palaces, and the g-reat 
pools of Siloam, and Hezekiah, and Bethesda, I find 
that our century has no monoplj^ of the world/s won- 
ders, and that the conceited age in which we live had 
better take in some of the sails of its pride when it re- 
members that it is hard work in later ages to get 
masonry that will last fifty ^^ears, to say nothing of 
the three thousand^ and no modern machiner^^ could 
lift blocks of stone like some of those standing high up 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY. 



231 



in the \Yalls of Baalbec. and that the art of printmg 
claimed for recent ages was practiced hy the Chinese 
fourteen hundred years ago, and that our midnight 
lightning express rail-train v/as foreseen by the prophet 
Xahum, when in the Bible he w^rote, '' The chariots 
shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against 
another in the broad ways; the}- shall seem like 
torches, they shall run like the lightnings, " and our elec- 
tric telegraph w^as foreseen by Job, when in the Bible 
he vrrcte. Canst thou send lightnings that they may 
go and say unto thee, ^ Here w^e are ^ ? What is 
talking b}' the lightnings, but the electric telegraph? 
I do not know but that the electric forces now being 
year by year more thoroughlj' harnessed may have 
been employed in ages extinct, and that the lightnings 
all up and down the skies have been running around 
like lost hounds to find their former master. 

Embalmment \vas a more thorough art three thou- 
sand years ago than to-day. Dentistry, that ^ve sup- 
pose one of the important arts discovered in recent 
centuries, is proven to be four thousand years old by 
the filled teeth of the mummies in ihe museums at 
Cairo, Egypt, and artificial teeth on gold plates found 
by Belzoni in the tombs of departed nations. We have* 
been taught that Harvey discovered the circulation of 
the blood so late as the seventeenth centur3^ Oh, no ! 
Solomon announces it in Ecclesiastes, where first having 
shown that he understood the spinal cord, silver-colored 
as it is, and that it relaxes in old age, the silver cord 
be loosed,'' goes on to compare the heart to a pitcher 
at a well, for the three canals of the heart do receive 
the blood like a pitcher, ^* or the pitcher be broken at 
the fountain. What is that but the circulation of the 
blood, found out twenty-six hundred years before 
Harvey was born ? After many centuries of explora- 



£32 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND» 



tion and calculation, astronomy finds out that the world 
is round. Why, Isaiah knew it was round thousands 
of years before, when in the Bible he said : ^^The Lord 
sitteth upon the circle of the earth/' Scientists toiled 
on for centuries and found out refraction, or that the 
rays of light when touching the earth were not straight, 
but bent or curved. Why, Job knew that when ages 
before in the Bible he wrote of the light : It is turned 
as clay to the seal. " 

In the old cathedrals of England modern painters, in 
the repair of windows, are trying to make something as 
good as the window painting of four hundred years ago 
and always failing by the unanimous verdict of all who 
examine and compare. The color of modern painting 
fades in Mty j^ears, while the color of the old masters 
is as well preserved after five hundred years as after 
one year. I saw last winter on the walls of exhumed 
Pompeii paintings with color as fresh as though made 
the day before, though they w^ere buried eighteen hun- 
dred years ago. The making of T3aian purple is an 
impossibility now. In our modern potteries we are try- 
ing hard to make, cups and pitchers and bowls as ex- 
quisite as those exhumed from Herculaneum, and our 
artificers are attempting to make jewelry for ear and 
neck and finger equal to that brought up from the 
mausoleums of tv\^o thousand years before Christ. We 
have in our time glass in all shapes and all colors, but 
Pliny, more than eighteen hundred years ag*o, described 
a malleable glass, which, if thrown upon the ground 
' and dented, could be pounded straight again b^^ the 
hammer or could be twisted around the wrists, and 
that confounds all the glass manufactories of our own 
time. I tried in Dan^ascus, Syria, to buy a Damascus 
blade, one of those swords that could be bent double or 
tied into a knot without breaking. I could not get one. 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY. 



233 



Why ? The rxhieteenth ceiituiy cannot make a Damas- 
cus blade. If we go on enlarging* our cities we may 
after a while get a city as large as Ba^bylon^ which was 
five times the size of London. 

The aqueducts of Solomon that I visit to-day^ find- 
ing them in good condition three thousand years after 
construction, make me think that the world may have 
forgotten more than it now knows. The great honor 
of our age is not machinery, for the ancients had some 
styles of it more wonderful ; nor art, for the ancients 
had art more exquisite and durable ; nor architecture, 
for Roman Coliseum and Grecian Acropolis surpass 
all modern architecture ; nor cities, for some of the 
ancient cities were larger than ours in the svreep of 
their pomp. But our attempts must be in moral 
achievement and Gospel victory. In that we have 
already surpassed them, and in that direction let the 
ages push on. Let us brag less of worldly achievement 
and thank God for moral opportunitj^ More good 
men and good women is what the world wants. 
Toward moral elevation and spiritual attainment let 
the chief struggle be. The source of all that I will 
show you before sundown of this day, on which we 
have visited the pools of Solomon, and the gardens of 
the king. 

We are on this December afternoon on the way to 
the cradle of Him who called Himself greater than 
Solomon. We are coming upon the chief cradle of all 
the world, not lined with satin, but strewn with straw ; 
not sheltered b}^ a palace, but covered b\^ a barn ; not 
presided over b\^ a princess, but hovered over by a 
peasant girl ; 3^et a cradle the canopy of which is 
angelic wings, and the lullaby of vvhich is the first 
Christmas carol ever sung, and from which all the 
vents of the past, and all the events of the future have 



234 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



and must take date as being B.C. or A.D. — before 
Christ or after Christ. All eternity past occupied 
in getting" ready for this cradle, and all eternity to 
come to be employed in celebrating its consequences. 

I said to the tourist companies planning our Oriental 
journey, Put us in Bethlehem in December, the place 
and the month of our Lord's birth," and we had our 
wish. I am the only man who ever attempted to tell 
how Bethlehem looked at the season Jesus was born. 
Tourists and writers are there in February or March 
or April, when the valleys are an embroidered sheet of 
wild flowers and anemones, and ranunculus are flushed 
as though from attempting to climb the steeps, and 
lark and bullfinch are flooding the air with bird- 
orchestra. But I was there in December, a winter 
month, the barren beach between the tvfo oceans 
of redolence. I was told I must not go there at that 
season ; told so before I started ; told so in Eg3^pt ; the 
books told me so ; all travelers that I consulted about 
it told me so. But I was determined to see Bethlehem 
the same month in which Jesus arrived, and nothing 
could dissuade me. Was I not right in wanting to 
know how the Holy Land looked when Jesus came to 
it ? He did not land amid flowers and song. When 
the angels chanted on the famous birthnight, all the 
fields of Palestine were silent. The glowing skies were 
answered by gray rocks. As JBethlehem stood against 
a bleak wintry sky, Jesus descended upon it. His wa^^ 
down was from warmth to chill, from bloom to barren- 
ness, from everlasting June to a sterile December. If 
I were going to Palestine as a botanist, and to study 
the flora of the land, I would go in March, but I went 
as a minister of Christ to stud^- Jesus, and so I went in 
December. I wanted to see how the world's front door 
looked wheii the Heavenly Stranger entered it* 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY. 



235 



The town of Bethlehem, to my surprise, is in the shape 
of a horseshoe, the houses extending* clear on to the 
prongs of the horseshoe. The whole scene more rough 
and rude than can be imagined. Verily, Christ did 
not choose a soft, genial place in which to be born. 
The gate through which our Lord entered tiiis world 
was a gate of rock, a hard, cold gate, and the gate 
through which he departed was a swinging gate of 
sharpened spears. We enter a gloomy church built 
b}^ Constantine over the place in which Jesus was born. 
Fifteen lamps burning day and night, and from century 
to century, light our wa\^ to the spot which all author- 
ities. Christian and Jew and Mohammedan, agree upon 
as being the place of our Saviour's birth, and covered 
by a marble slab, marked by a silver star sent from 
Vienna^ and the words: ^^Here Jesus Christ was 
born of the Virgin Mary." 

But standing there, I thought, though this is the 
place of the nativity, how different the surroundings 
of the wintry night in which Jesus came ! At that time 
it was a khan or a cattle-pen. •'I visited one of these 
khans now standing and looking just as in Christ's 
time. We rode in under the arched entrance and dis- 
mounted. We found the building of stone and around 
an open square without roof. The building is more 
than two thousand years old. It is two stories high. 
In the center are camels, horses and mules. Caravans 
halt here for the night or during a long storm. The 
open square is large enough to accommodate a whole 
herd of cattle, a flock of sheep, or caravan of camels. 
The neighboring Bedouins here find market for their 
hay, straw and meats. Off from this center there are 
twelve rooms for human habitation. The only light is 
from the door. I went into one of these rooms and 
found a woman cooking the evening meal. There were 



238 SIRMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



six cows in the same room. On a little elevation there 
was some straw where the people sat and slept when 
they wished to rest. It was in a room similar to that 
our Lord was born. 

This was the cradle of a king*, and yet what cradle [ 
ever held so much ? Civilization ! Liberty ! Redemp- 
tion ! Your pardon and mine ! Your peace and mine ! 
Your Heaven and mine ! Cradle of a universe I Cradle 
of a God 1 The gardens of Solomon we visited this 
morning- were only a type of what all the world will be 
when this illustrious Personage now born shall have 
completed His mission. The horse of finest limb^ and 
gayest champ of bit^ and sublimest arch of neck that 
ever brought Solomon down to these adjoining gar- 
dens was but a poor type of the horse upon which this 
Conqueror born in the barn shall ride, when, according 
to Apocalyptic vision, all the armies of Heaven shall 
follow him on white horses." The waters that rush 
down these hills into 3^onder three great reservoirs of 
rock, and then pour jn marvelous aqueduct into Jeru- 
salem till the brazen sea is full, and the baths are full, 
and Siloam is full, are only an imperfect type of the 
rivers of delight which, as the result of this great One's 
coming, shall roll on for the slaking of the thirst of all 
nations. The palace of Lebanon cedar from which the 
imperial cavalcade passed out in the early morning 
and to which it returned with glowing* cheek, and 
jingling harness, and lathered sides, is feeble of archi- 
tecture compared with the House of Many Mansions 
into which this One, born this winter month on these 
bleak heights, shall conduct us when our sins are all 
pardoned, our battles all fought, our tears all wept, 
our work all done. 

Standing here at Bethlehem, do you not see that 
the most honored thing in all the earth is the cradle ? 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY. 



237 



To what else did loosened star ever point? To what 
else did Heaven lower balconies of light filled with 
chanting- immortals ? The way the cradle rocks the 
world rocks. God bless the mothers all the world over ! 
The cradles decide the destinies of nations. In ten 
thousand of them are, this moment^ the hands that will 
j'et give benediction of mercy or hurl bolts of doom, 
the feet that will mount the steeps toward God or de- 
scend the blasted way, the lips that will pray or blas- 
pheme. Oh, the cradle ! It is more tremendous than 
the grave. Where are most of the leaders of the 
tw^entieth century soon to dawn upon us ? Are they on 
thrones ? No. In chariots ? No. In pulpits ? No. 
In forums ? No. In senatorial halls ? No. In count- 
ing-houses ? No. They are in the cradle. The most 
tremendous thing in the universe, and next to God, is 
to be a mother. Lord Shaftesbury said, ^' Give me a 
generation of Christian mothers and I will change the 
whole phase of societ}^ in twelve months." Oh, the 
cradle ! Forget not the one in w^hich you were rocked. 
Though old and worn out, that cradle may be standing 
in attic or barn ; forget not the foot that swayed it, the 
lips that sang over it, the tears that dropped upon it, 
the faith in God that made w^ay for it. The boy Wal- 
ter Scott did well when he spent the first five-guinea 
piece he ever earned as a present to his mother. 

Dishonor not the cradle, though it may, like the one 
my sermon celebrates, have been a cradle in a barn, 
for I think it was a Christian cradle. That was a great 
cradle in which Martin Luther la^^, for from it came 
forth the reformation of the sixteenth century. That 
was a great cradle in which Daniel O'Connell lay, for 
from it came forth an eloquence that will be inspiring 
while men have eyes to read or ears to hear. That was 
a great cradle in which Washinton lay, for from it cam.e 



238 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



forth the happy deliverance of a nation. That was a 
great cradle in which John Howard lay, for from it 
came forth a mercy that will not cease until the last 
dungeon gets the Bible, and light, and fresh air. Great 
cradles in which the John Wesleys, and the John 
Knoxes, and the John Masons la^^, for from them came 
forth an all-conquering evangelization. But the great- 
est cradle in which child ever slept, or woke, laughed, 
or cried, was the cradle over which Mary bent, and to 
which the wise men brought frankincense, and upon 
which the heavens dropped song. Had there been no 
manger, there had been no cross. Had there been no 
Bethlehem, there had been no Golgotha. Had there 
been no Incarnation, there had been no Ascension. 
Had there been no start, there had been no close. 

Standing in the chill khan of a Saviour's humiliation, 
and seeing what he did for us, I ask, What have we 
done for Him? There is nothing I can do," says 
one. As Christmas was approaching the village church, 
a good woman said to a group of girls in lowl^^ and 
straitened circumstances : ^^Let all now do something 
for Christ." After the day was over, she asked the 
group to teir her what the^^ had done. One said : ^ - 1 
could not do much, for we are very poor, but I had a 
beautiful flower I had carefully trained in our home, 
and I thought much of it, and I put the flower on the 
church altar." And another said: I could not do 
much, for we are very poor, but I can sing a little, and 
so I went down to a poor sick woman in the lane, and 
sang as well as I could, to cheer her up, a Christmas 
song.". " Well, Helen, what did you do ? " She re- 
plied : I could not do much, but I wanted to do 
something for Christ, and I could think of nothing else 
to do, and so I wont into the church after the people 
who had been adorning the altar had left, and I 



SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY. 



239 



scrubbed down the back altar stairs." Beautiful! I 
warrant that the Christ of that Christmas day gave 
her as much credit for that earnest a ct as he may have 
given to the robed official who, on that day, read for 
the people the prayers of a resounding service. Some- 
thing for Christ ! Something for Christ ! 

A plain man passing a fortress saw a Russian soldier 
on guard in a terribly cold night, and took off his coat 
and gave it to the soldier, sa^'ing, I will soon be home 
and warm, and you will be out here all night." So the 
soldier wrapped himself in the borrowed coat. The 
plain man who loaned the coat to the soldier soon after 
was dying, and in his dream saw Christ, and said to 
him: ^'You have got my coat on." Yes," said 
Christ, this is the one you lent me on that cold night 
hy the fortress. I 'was naked, and ye clothed me." 
Something for Christ ! By the memories of Bethlehem 
I adjure you ! 

In the light of that star 

Lie the ages empearled. 
That song from afar 

Has swept over the world. 



THE JOURNEY TO BETHEL. 



So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north/'— 
Ezekiel viii., 5. 



At one o'clock on a December afternoon, through 
Damascus gate we are passing out of Jerusalem, for a 
journey northward, Ho ! for Bethel with its stairs, 
the bottom step of which was a stone pillow, and 
Jacob's well with its immortal colloquy, and Nazareth 
with its Divine Boy in His father's carpenter shop, and 
the most glorious lake that ever rippled or flashed : 

Blue Galilee, sweet Galilee, 

The lake where J esus loved to be ; 

and Damascus v/ith its crooked street called Straight, 
and a hundred places charged and surcharged with 
apostolic, evangelistic, prophetic, patriarchal, kingly 
and Christly reminiscences. 

In traveling along the roads of Palestine I am im- 
pressed as I could not otherwise have been with the 
fact that Christ for the most part went afoot. We 
find him occasionally on a boat, and once riding in a 
triumphal procession, as it is sometimes called, al- 
though it seems to me that the hosannas of the crowd 
could not have made a ride on a stubborn, unimpressive 
and funny creature like that which pattered with him 
into Jerusalem very much of a triumph. But we are 
made to understand that generally he walked. Hoav 
much that means only those know who have gone 
over the distance traversed by Christ. We are accus- 



THE JOURNEY TO BETHEL. 



241 



tomed to read that Bethany is two miles from Jerusa- 
lem. Well; any man in ordinary health can walk two 
miles without fatigue. But not n^ore than one man out 
of a thousand can walk from Bethany to Jerusalem 
without exhaustion. It is over the Mount of Olives^ and 
3'ou must climb up among the rolling stones and descend 
where exertion is necessary to keep you from falling 
prostrate. I. who am accustomed to walk fifteen or 
twenty miles vrithout lassitude, tried part of this road 
over the Mount of Olives and confess I would not want 
to trv it often, such demand d oes it ma ke upon one's 
physical energies. Yet Christ walked it twice a day — 
m the morning from Bethany to Jerusalem^ and in the 
evening from Jerusalem to Bethany. 

Likewise it seemed a small thing that Christ walked 
from Jerusalem to Xazareth. But it will take us four 
days of hard*^horsehack riding, sometimes on a trot 
and sometimes on a gallop, to do it this vv'eek. The 
way is mountainous in the extreme. To those who 
w^ent up to the Tip-Top House on Mount "Washington, 
before the railroad was laid, I will say that this jour- 
ney from Jerusalem to Xazareth is like seven such 
American journeys. So, all up and down and across 
and recrossing Palestine, Jesus walked. Ahah. rode. 
David rode. Solomon rode. Herod rode. Antony 
rode. But Jesus walked. With swollen ankles and 
sore muscles of the legs, and bruised heel and stiff 
joints and panting lungs and faint head, along the 
roads, and where there were no roads at all, Jesus 
walked. 

We tried to get a new horse other than that on 
vrhich we had ridden on the journey to the Dead Sea, 

for he had faults vrhich oui^ close acquaintanceship had 
developed. But after some experimenting with other 
rjuadrupeds of that species, and flndiug that all horses. 



24:2 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

like their riders, have faults, we concluded to choose 
a saddle on that beast whose faults we were most pre- 
pared to pity or resist. . We rode down through the 
valley and then up on Mount Scopus, and as our drag- 
oman tells us that this is the last opportunity we shall 
have of looking at Jerusalem, we turn our horse's head 
towards the city and take a long, sad and thrilling 
look at the religious capital of our planet. This is the 
most impressive view of the most tremendous city of 
all time. On and around this hill the armies of the 
Crusaders, at the first sight of the city, threw them- 
selves on their faces in worship. Here most of the 
besieged^ armies encamped the night before opening 
their volleys of death against Jerusalem ! Our last 
look ! Farewell, Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, Mount of 
Olives, Mount Calvary ! Will we never see them 
again ? Never. The world is so large and time is so 
short, and there are so many things we have never seen 
at all, that we cannot afford to duplicate visits or see 
anything more than once. Farewell yonder thrones 
of gray rock, and the three thousand years of archi- 
tecture and battlefields . Farewell sacred , sanguinary, 
triumphant, humiliated Jerusalem ! Across this val- 
ley of the Kedron with my right hand I throw thee a 
kiss of valedictory. Our last look, like our first look, 
an agitation of body, mind an'd soul, indescribable. 

And now, like Ezekiel in my text, I lift up mine 
e^^es the way toward the north. Nea^r here was one of 
the worst tragedies of the ages mentioned in the Bible. 
A hospitable old man coming home at eventide from 
his work in the fields, finds two strangers, a husband 
and wife, proposing to lodge in the streets because no 
shelter is offered them, and invites them to come in 
and spend the night in his home. During the night, 
the ruffians of the neighborhood conspired together, 



THE JOURXEY TO BETHEL. 



243 



and surrounded the house and left the woman dead on 
the doorstep, and the husband^, to rally in revenge the 
twelve tribes, cut the corpse of the woman into twelve 
parts and sent a twelfth of it to each tribe, and the 
fury of the nation was roused, and a peremptory de- 
mand was made for the surrender of the assassins, and, 
the demand refused, in one day twenty thousand peo- 
ple were left dead on the field and the next day eighteen 
thousand. Wherever our horse plants his foot, in 
those ancient times a corpse lay, and the roads were 
crossecl by red rivulets of carnage. 

Now we pass on where sca'Cu youths were put to 
death and their bodies gibbeted or hung in chains, not 
for anything they had themselves done, but as a repa- 
ration for what their father, and grandfather, Saul, 
had done. Burial was denied these youths from May 
until Xovember. Rizpah, tlie mother of two of these 
dead boys, appoints herself as sentinel to guard the 
seven corpses from beak of raven and tooth of wolf and 
paw of lion. She pitches a black tent on the rock close 
by the gibbets. Rizpah by day sits on the ground in 
froiit of her tent, and when a vulture begins to lower 
out of the noonday sky seeking its prey among the 
gibbets, Rizpah rises, her long hair flying in the wind, 
and, swinging her arms wildly about, shoos away the 
bird of prey until it retreats to its eyrie. At night she 
rests under the shadow of her tent and sometimes falls 
into a drowsiness or half sleep. But the step of a jackal 
among the dry leaves or the panting of a hyena arouses 
her. and with the fury of a maniac, she rushes out 
upon the rock, crying, "'Awayl Away I '' and then 
examining the gibbets to see that they still keep their 
lu.irden. returns again to her tent till some swooping 
wing from the midnight sky or some growling monster 
on the rock again wakes her. 



244 



SERMONS ON THE HOLT LAND, 



A mother watching her dead children through May, 
June, July, August, September, and October ! What 
a vigil ! Painters have tried to put upon canvas the 
scene, and thej^ succeeded in sketching the hawks in 
the sky and the panthers crawling out from the jungle, 
but they fail to giA^e the wanness, the earnestness, the 
supernatural courage, the infinite self-sacrifice of Riz- 
pah, the mother. A mother in the quiet home watch- 
ing by the casket of a dead child for one night exerts 
the artist to his utmost, but who is sufficient to put 
upon canvas a mother for six months of midnights 
guarding her whole family, dead and gibbeted upon 
the mountains ? Go home, Rizpah ! You must be 
awfully tired. You are sacrificing your reason and 
your life for those whom you can never bring back 
again to your bosom. As I say that, from the darkest 
midnight of the century Rizpah turns upon me and 
cries : " How dare you tell me to go home ? I am. a 
mother. I am not tired. You might as well expect 
God to get tired as for a mother to get tired. I cared 
for those boys w^hen they lay upon my breast in infancy 
and I will not forsake them now that they are dead. 
Interrupt me not. There stoops an eagle that I must 
drive back with my agonized cry. There is a panther 
I must beat back with my club ! " 

Do you know what that scene by our roadside in 
Palestine makes me me think of? It is no unusual 
scene. Right here in these three cities by the Ameri- 
can sea-coast there are a thousand cases this moment 
worse than that. Mothers watching boys that the 
rum saloon, that annex of hell, has gibbeted in a living 
death. Boys hung in chains of evil habit they cannot 
break. The father may go to sleep after waiting until 
twelve o'clock at night for the ruined boy to come 
home, and giving it up, he may say: Mother, 



THE JOURNF.Y TO BETHEL, 



245 



come to bed ; there's no use sitting up any longer." 
But mother Avill not go to bed. It is one o'clock in the 
morning. It is half-past one. It is two o'clock. It 
is half-past two when he comes staggering through 
the hall. Do you say that young man is yet alive ? 
l\o ; he is dead. Dead to his father's entreaties. Dead 
to his jnother's prayers. Dead to the family altar 
where he Avas reared. Dead to all the noble aml itions 
that once inspired him. Twice dead. Only a corpse 
of what he once was. Gibbeted before God and man 
and angels and devils. Chained in a death that will 
not loosen its cold grasp. His father is asleep^ his 
brothers are asleep^ his sisters are asleep, but his 
mother is watching him, watching him in the night. 
After he has gone up to bed and fallen into a drunken 
sleep, his mother will go up to his room and see that 
he is properly covered, and before she turns out the 
light will put a kiss upon his bloated lips. Mother, 
why don't you go to bed ? " ''Ah," she says, ^' I can- 
not go to bed. I am Rizpah watching the slain." 

And what are the political parties of this country 
doing for such cases ? The^^ are taking care not to 
hurt the the feelings of the jackals and the buzzards 
that roost on the shelves of the grog-shops, and hoot 
above the dead. I am often asked to what political 
party I belong, and I now declare my opinion of the 
political parties to-day. Each one is worse than the 
other, and the only consolation in regard to them is, 
1 hat they have putrefied until they have no more power 
to rot. Oh, that comparatively tame scene upon which 
Rizpah looked ? She looked upon only seven of the 
slain. American motherhood and American Avifehood, 
this moment, are looking upon seventy of the slain, 
upon seven hundred of the slain, upon seven t}^ thou- 
sand of the slain. Woe I "Woe I Woe I My only con- 



246 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



solation on this subject is that foreign capitalists are 
buying up the American breweries. The present owners 
see that the doom of that business is coming- as surely 
as that God is not dead. They are unloading upon for- 
eign capitalists^ and when we can get these breweries 
into the hands of people living on the other side of tVi{3 
sea, our political parties wall cease to be afraid of tlie 
liquor traffic, and at their conventions nominating 
presidential candidates will put in their platform a 
plank as big as the biggest plank of the biggest ocean 
steamer, saying : " Resolved unanimously that we al- 
ways have been and always will be opposed to alco- 
holism.'^ 

But I must spur on our Arab steed, and here we 
come in sight of Beeroth, said to be the place where 
Joseph and Mary missed the boy Jesus on the way from 
Jerusalem to Nazareth, going home from a great 
natiSnal festival, " Where is my child, Jesus ? " says 
Mary. ^'AVhere ismy child, Jesus ? says Joseph. 
Among the thousands that are returning from Jerusa- 
lem, they thought that certainly he was walking on 
in the crowd. They described him, saying : " He is 
twelve years old, and of light complexion and blue 
e3^es. A lost child ! " Great excitement in all the 
crowd. Nothing so stirs folks as the news that a child 
is lost. I shall not forget the scene when in a great 
out-door meeting, I was preaching, and someone 
stepped on the platform and said that a child was lost. 
We went on with the religious service, but all our 
minds were on the lost child. After a wiiile a man 
brought on the platform a beautiful little tot that 
looked like a piece of Heaven dropped down, and said : 
Here ig that child." And I forgot all that I was 
preaching about, and lifted the child to my shoulder 
and said : ^' Here is the lost child, and the mother 



THE JOURNEY TO BETHEL. 



247 



will come and get her right away, or I will take her 
home and add her to my own brood!" And some 
cried and some shouted, and amid all that crowd I 
instantly detected the mother. Everybody had to get 
out of her way or be walked over. Hats were nothing 
and shoulders were nothing and heads were nothing 
in her pathway, and I realized something of what must 
have been Mar^^^s anxiety when she lost Jesus, and 
what her gladness when she found her boy in the 
Temple of Jerusalem, talking with those old ministers 
of religion, Shammai, Hillel and Betirah. 

I bear down on you to-day with a mighty comfort. , 
Mary and Joseph said : Where is our Jesus ? and 
you sa3^, Where is John ? or where is Henry ? or 
Avhere is George ? " Well, I should not wonder if you 
found him after a while. Where ? In the same place 
wiiere Joseph and Mary found their boy — in the tem- 
ple. What do I mean by that ? I mean : you do your 
duty toward God and tovv^ard your child, and you will 
fnid him after awhile in the kingdom of Christ. Will- 
you say : I do not have any waj^ of influencing my 
child"? I answer, you have the most tremendous 
line of influence open right before you. As you write 
a letter, and there are two or three routes by which it 
may go, but you want it to go the quickest route, and 
you put on it via Southampton," or ''via San Fran- 
cisco, " or '' via Marseilles,^' put on 3^our wishes about 
3^our child, ''via the throne of God." How long will 
such a good wish take to get to its destination ? Not 
quite as long as the millionth part of a second. I will 
prove it. The promise is, " Befoi*e they call I will 
answer." That means at 3'our first motion towards 
such prayerful exercise the blessing will come, and if 
the prayer be made at ten o'clock at night, it will be 



248 



SEMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



answered five minutes before ten. Before thej^ call 
I will answer." 

Well, you say, I am clear discouraged about my 
son, and I am getting* on in years, and I fear I will not 
live to see him converted. Perhaps not; nevertheless, 
I think you will find him in the temple, the heavenly 
temple. There has not been an hour in Heaven the 
last one hundred j^ears when parents in glor^^ have not 
had announced to them the salvation of children whom 
they left in this world profligate, e often have to 
say '^I forgot," but God has never jet once said I 
forgot." It may be, after the grass of thirty sum- 
mers have greened the top of your grave, that your 
son may be found in the earthly temple. It may be 
fiftj^ years from now, when some morning the towers 
are chiming the matins of the glorified in Heaven, that 
you shall find him in the higher temple, w^hich has 
^' no need of candle or of sun, for the Lord God and the 
Lamb are the light thereof." Cheer up, Christian 
father and mother ! Cheer up I here Joseph and 
Mary found their boy you will find 3^ours — in the tem- 
ple. You see, God could not afford to do otherwise. 
One of the things he has positively promised in the 
Bible is that he will answer earnest and believing 
prayer. Failing to do that, he would wreck his 
own throne, and the foundations of his palace would 
give way, and the bank of Heaven would suspend pay- 
ment, and the dark word ^^repudiation "would be 
written across the sky, and the Eternal Government 
would be disbanded, and God himself would become 
an exile. Keep on v/ith your prayer, and you will yet 
find your child in the temple, either the temple here 
or the temple above. 

Out on the Western prairies was a happ3^ but isolated 
home. Father, mother and child. By the sale of 



THE JOURNEY TO BETHEL. 



249 



cattle quite a large sum of money was one nigiit in that 
calnn. and the father ^yas away. A robber who had 
heard of the money one night looked in at the window, 
and the wife and mother of that home saw him, and 
she was helpless. Her chikl by her side, she knelt 
down and prayed among* other things for all prodigals 
Y\ho were wandering up and down the world. The 
robber heard her prayer and was overwhelmed, and 
entered the cabin, and knelt beside her and began to 
pray. He had come to rob that house, but the prayer 
of that woman for prodigals reminded him of his 
mother and her prayei^ before he became a vagabond, 
and from that hour he began^a new life. Years after, 
that Avoman was in a city in a great audience, and the 
orator who came on the platform and plead gloriously 
for righteousness and God vras the man who many 
years before had looked mto the cabin on the prairie as 
a robber. The speaker and the auditor immediately 
recognized each other. After so long a time, a 
mother's prayers answered. 

But we must hurry on. for the muleteers and bag- 
gage men have been ordered to pitch our tents for to- 
night at Bethel. It is already getting so dark that 
we have to give up all idea of guidnig the horses, and 
I leave them to their own sagacity. "\Ve ride down 
amid mud cabins and into ravines where the horses 
leap from depth to depth, rocks below rocks, rocks un- 
der rocks. Whoa ! Whoa ! We dismount in this place,! 
memorable for many thmgs in Bible hisLor\', the two 
more prominent, a theological seminary, where of old 
they made mmisters. and for Jacob's dream. The stu- 
dents of til's Bethel Theological Seminary were called 

Sons of the Prophets." Here the young men were 
fitted for the ministry, and those of us who ever had 
the advantage i^i such institutions will everlastingly be 



250 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

g^i'ateful, and in the calendar of saints, wliicli I read 
with especial affection, are the doctors of divinity who 
blessed me with their care. I thank God that from 
these theological seminaries there is now coming- forth 
a magnificent crop of ^'^oung ministers who are taking 
the pulpits in all parts of "the land. I hail their coming 
and tell these young brothers to shake off the somno- 
lence of centuries, and get out from under the dusty 
shelves of theological discussions which have no prac- 
tical bearing on this age, which needs to get rid of its 
sins and have its sorrows comforted. 

Many of our pulpits are dying of humdrum. People 
do not go to church because they cannot endure the 
technicalities, and profound explanations of nothing, 
and sermons about the eternal generation of the Son,' ' 
and the difference between sub-lapsarianism and supra- 
lapsarianism, and about who Melchisedec wasn't. 
There ought to be as much difference between the modes 
of presenting truth now and in olden time as between 
a lightning express rail-train and a canal boat. Years 
ago, I went up to the door of a factory in N"ew England. 
On the outside door I saw the words No admittance." 
I went in and came to another door over which were 
the words No admittance." Of course I went in, and 
came to the third door inscribed with the words No 
admittance." Having entered this, I found the people 
inside making pins, beautiful pins, useful pins, and 
nothing but pins ! So over the outside door of many 
of the churches has been practically written the words 

No admittance." Some have entered, and have come 
to the inside door, and found the words No admit- 
tance." But persisting, they have come inside, and 
found us sounding out our little niceties of belief, point- 
ing out our little differences of theological sentiment — 
making pins ! 



THE JOURNEY TO BETHEL. 251 



But most distinguished was Bethel for that famous 
dream which Jacob had, his head on a collection of 
stones. He had no trouble in this rock^^ region in find- 
ing a rocky pillow. There is hardly anything else but 
stone. Yet the people of those lands have a way of 
drawing their outer g^arment up over their head and 
face and such a pillow I suppose Jacob had under his 
head. The plural was used in the Bible story and you 
find it was not a pillow of stone, but of stones, I sup- 
pose, so that if one proved to be of uneven surface he 
would turn over in the night and take another stone, 
for with such a hard bolster he would often change in 
the night. Well, that night God built in Jacob's dream 
a long, splendid ladder, the feet of it on either side of 
the tired pilgrim's pillow, and the top of it mortised in 
the sky. And bright immortals came out from the 
castles of amber and gold and put their shining feet on 
the shining rungs of the ladder, and the^^ kept coming 
down and going up, a procession both wa^'S. 

Suppose they had wings, for the Bible almost always 
reports them as having wings, but this was a ladder 
on which they used hands and feet to encourage all 
those of us who have no whigs to climb, and en- 
couraging us to believe that, if we will use what we 
have, God will provide a wa^^ and if we will employ 
the hand and the foot he will furnish the ladder. 
Young man I do not wait for wings. Those angels 
folded theirs to shoAv you wings are not necessary. 
Let all the people who have hard pillows, hard for sick- 
ness or hard for poverty" or hard for persistence, know- 
that a hard pillow is the landing-place of angels. They 
seldom descend to pillows of eider-down. They seldom 
build dreams in the brain of the one who sleeps easy. 

Tlie g]^eatest dream of all time was that of St. John 
with his head on the rocks of Patmos, and in that 



S52 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

vision he heard the seven trumpets sounded, and savsr 
all the pomp of Heaven in procession cherubic, se- 
raphic, archang-elicl The next most memorable and 
glorious dream was that of John Bunyan, his pillow 
the cold stone of the floor of Bedford jail, from which 
he saw the celestial city, and so man}^ entering- ifc, he 
cried out in his dream : " I wish myself among them." 
The next most wonderful dream was that of Washing- 
ton, sleeping on the ground at Vallej^ Forge, his head 
on a white pillow case of snow, where he sav/ the vision 
of a nation emancipated. Columbus slept on a weaver's 
pillow, but rose on the ladder let down until he could 
see a new hemisphere. Demosthenes slept on a cut; 
ter's pillow, but on the ladder let down arose to see 
the mighty assemblages that were to be swayed by 
his oratorj^ Arkwright slept on a barber's pillow, but 
went up the ladder till he could see all England aquake 
with the factories he set going. Akenside slept on the 
butcher's pillow and took the ladder up till he saw 
other generations helped by his scholarship. John 
Ashworth slept on a poor man's pillow, but took the 
ladder up until he could see his prayers and exertions 
bringing thousands of the destitute in England to sal- 
vation and Heaven. Nearly all those who are to-day 
great in merchandise, in statesmanship, in law, in 
medicine, in art, in literature, were once at .the foot of 
the ladder, and in their boyhood had a pillow hard as 
Jacob's. They who are born at the top of the ladder 
are apt to spend their lives in coming down, while 
those who are at the foot, and their head on a boulder, 
if they have the right kind of dream, are almost sure to 
rise. 

I notice that those angels, either in coming down or 
going up on Jacob's ladder, took it rung by rung. 
They did not leap to the bottom, nor jump to the top. 



THE JOUHNEY TO BETHEL. 



253 



So yon are to rise. Faith added to faith, good deed 
to g-ood deed^ industrj^ to industry, consecration to 
consecration, until 3"ou reach the top, rung- by rung*. 
Gradual going up from a block of granite to pillar of 
throne. 

That night at Bethel I stood in front of my tent and 
looked up, and the heavens were full of ladders, first 
a ladder of clouds, then a ladder of stars, and all up 
and down the heavens were angels of beauty, angels 
of consolation, angels of God, ascending and descend- 
• ing. Surel,y God is in this place," said Jacob, and 
I knew it not." But to-night God is in this place, and 
I know it I 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



" Forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the 
wilderness ."—Numbers x., 31. 



Night after night we have slept in tent in Palestine. 
There are large villages of Bedouins without a house, 
and for three thousand years the people of those places 
have lived in black tents, made out of dyed skins, and 
when the winds and storms wore out and tore loose 
those coverings, others of the same kind took their 
places. Noah lived in a tent. Abraham in a tent. 
Jacob pitched his tent on the mountain. Isaac 
pitched his tent in the valley. Lot pitched his tent 
toward Sodom. In a tent the woman Jael nailed 
Sisera, the general, to the ground, first having given 
him sour milk called ^4eten as a soporific to make 
him soundly sleep, that being the effect of such nutri- 
tion, as modern travelers can testify. The Syrian 
army in a tent. The ancient battle-shout was To 
your tents, O Israel ! " Paul was a tent-maker. In- 
deed, Isaiah, magnificentl}^ poetic, indicates that all the 
human race live under a blue tent when he says that 
God ^^stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and 
spreadeth them, out as a tent to dwell in,'' and Heze- 
kiah compares death to the striking of a tent, saying. 

My age is removed from me as a shepherd's tent." 

In our tent in Palestine to-night I hear something I 
never heard before and hope never to hear again. It is 
the voice of a h^^ena amid the rocks nearb3^ When you 
may have seen this monster putting his mouth between 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



255 



the iron bars of a menagerie, be is a captive and he 
gives a humiiiated and suppressed cry. But yonder in 
the midnight on a throne of rocks he has nothing to 
fear and he utters himself in a loud, resounding, ter- 
ri&c, almost supernatural sound, splitting up the dark- 
ness into a decider midnight. It begins with a howl 
and ends with a sound something like a horse's whin- 
nying. In the hyena's voice are defiance and strength 
and blood-thirstiness and crunch of broken bones and 
death. 

I am glad to say that for the most part Palestine is 
clear of beasts of prey. The leopards, which Jeremiah 
says cannot change their spots, have all disappeared, 
and the lions that once were common all through this 
land and used by all the prophets for illustrations 
of cruelty and wrath, have retreated before the dis- 
chai^ges of gunpowder, of which the}^ have an inde- 
scribable fear. But for the most part Palestine is what 
it originally was. With the one exception of a wire 
Thread reaching from Joppa to Jerusalem, and from 
Jerusalem to Nazareth, and from Xazaretlr to Tiberias, 
and from Tiberias to Damascus, that one nerve of civ- 
iiization — the telegraphic wire (for we found ourselves 
only a few minutes oft" from Brooklyn and Xew York 
while standing by Lake Galilee) — with that one ex- 
ception, Palestine is just as it always was. 

Nothing surprised me so much as the persistence of 
everything, A sheep or horse falls dead, and, though 
the sky may one minute before be clear of all wings, in 
five minutes after the skies are black with eagles caw* 
iug, screaming, plunging, fighting for room, contend- 
ing for largest morsels of the extinct quadruped. Ah, 
now I understand the force of Christ's illustration when 
he said: Wheresoever the carcass is there will the 
eagles be gathered together.'' The longevity of those 



2*56 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



eag-les is wonderful. They live fifty or sixty and some- 
times a hundred years. Ah, that explains vv hat David 
meant when he says^ Thy youth is renev/ed like the 
eagle's." I saY>^ a shepherd with the folds of his coat 
far bent outward and I wondered what was contained 
in that amplitude of apparel, and I said to the drago- 
man, What has that shepherd got under his coat ? '' 
And the dragoman said : ^' It is a very young lamb he 
is carrying; it is too j^oung and too weak and too cold 
to keep up with the flock." At that moment I saw the 
lamb put its head out from the shepherd's bosom, and 
I said : " There it is now, Isaiah's description of the 
tenderness of God : ^ He shall gather the lambs with 
his arm and carry them in his bosom.' " 

Passing a village home in the Holy Land, about 
noon, I saw a great crowd in and around a private 
house, and I said to the dragoman : David, what is 
going on there ? " He said : Somebody has recently 
died there and their neighbors go in for several days 
after to sit down and weep with the bereaved." There 
it is, I said, the old Scriptural custom : And many of 
the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them 
concerning their brother." Early in the morning pass- 
ing by a cemetery in the Holy Land, I saw among the 
graves about fifty women dressed in black, and they 
were crying : Oh, my child ! " Oh, my husband ! " 

Oh, my father ! " " Oh, my mother ! " Our dragoman 
told us that every morning very early for three morn- 
ings after burial, the women go to the sepulcher, and 
after that every week very early for a year. As I saw 
this group just after daybreak, I said : There it is 
again, the same old custom referred to in Luke, the 
evangelist, where he says : Certain w^omen which 
were early at the sepulcher." 

But here we found ourselves at Jacob's well, the 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



257 



most famous well in histor^^, most distinguished for 
two things, because it belonged to the old patriarch 
after whom it was named^ and for the wonderful things 
Avhich Christ said, seated on this well-curb, to the 
Samaritan woman. We dismount from our horses in 
a drizzling rain, and our dragoman climbing up to the 
well over the slippery stones, stumbles and frightens 
us all by nearly falling into it. I measured the welf at 
the top and found it six feet from edge to edge. Some 
grass and weeds and thorny growths overhang it. In 
one place the roof is broken through. Large stones 
embank the wall on all sides. Our dragoman took 
pebbles and dropped them in, and from the time they 
left his hand to the instant they clicked on the bottom 
you could hear it was deep, though not as deep as 
once, for every day travelers are applying the same 
test, and though in the time of Maundrell, the travel- 
er, the well was a hundred and sixty-five feet deep, 
now it is only seventy-five. So greai is the curiositj^ 
of the world to know about that well, that during the 
dry season a Captain Anderson descended into this 
well, at one place the sides so close he had to put his 
hands over his head in order to get through, and then 
he fainted away and la^^ at the bottom of the well as 
though dead, until hours after recovery he came to 
the surface. 

It is not like other wells digged down to a fountain 
that fills it, but a reservoir to catch the falling rains, 
and to that Christ refers when speaking to the Samar- 
itan woman about a spiritual supph^, he said that he 
Avould, if asked, have given her living water " ; that 
is, water from a flowing spring in distinction from the 
w^ater of that well, which was rain water. But why 
did Jacob make a reservoir there when there is plenty 
of water all around and abundance of springs and foun- 



258 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



tains and seemingly no need of that reservoir ? Why- 
did Jacob go to the vast expense of boring and digging 
a well perhaps two hundred feet deep as first com- 
pleted, when, by going a little way off he could have 
water from other fountains at little or no expense? 
Ah, Jacob was wise. He wanted his own well. Quar- 
rels^ and wars might arise with other tribes and the 
supply of water might be cut off, so the shovels and 
pick-axes and boring instruments were ordered and 
the well of nearly four thousand years ago was sunk 
through the solid rock. 

When Jacob thus wisely insisted on having his own 
well he taught us not to be unnecessarily dependent on 
others. Independence of business character. Indepen- 
dence of moral character. Independence of religious 
character. Have jonr own well of grace, your own 
well of courage, your own well of divine supply. If 
you are an invalid you have a right to be dependent on 
others. But if God has given you good health, com- 
mon sense, and two eyes, and two ears, and two hands, 
and two feet, he equipped you for independence of all 
the universe except himself. If he had meant you to 
be dependent on others you would have been built with 
a cord aground your waist to tie fast to somebody else. 
No ; you are built with common sense to fashion your 
own opinions, with eyes to find your own way, with 
ears to select your own music, with hands to fight your 
own battles. There is only one being in the universe 
whose advice you need, and that is God. Have your 
own well and the Lord will fill it. Dig it if need be 
through two hundred feet of solid rock. Dig it with 
your pen, or dig it with your yard-stick, or dig it with 
your shovel, or dig it with your Bible. 

In my small wa^^ I never accomplished anything for 
Qod or the Cluu'chj or the world, or my family, or my- 



INXiDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



259 



self, except in contradiction to human advice and in 
obedience to Divine counsel. God knows everything, 
and vdiat is the use of going for advice to human beings 
v/ho know so little that no one but the all-seeing God 
can realize how little it is ? I suppose that when Jacob 
began to dig this well on which we are sitting this 
noontide, people gathered around and said : "What a 
useless expense you are going to, when rolling down 
from yonder Mount Gerizim and down from yonder 
Mount EbaJ, and out yonder in the valley is plenty- of 
water ! " Oh," replied Jacob, that is all true, but 
supiDose my neighbors shoukl get angered against me 
and cut off my supph' of mountain beverage, what 
would I do, and what would my family do, and what 
would my flocks and herds do ? Forward, ye brigade 
of pickaxes aud crowbars, and go down into the depths 
of these rocks and make me independent of all except 
Him who fills the bottles of the clouds I I must have 
my own well I 

Young man, drop cigars, and cigarettes, and wine 
cups, and the Sunday excursions, and build your own 
house and have your own wardrobe, and be your own 
capitalist ! '* Wlij^, I have only five hundred dollars 
income a year ! says someone. Then spend four 
hundred dollars of it in living and ten per cent of it or 
hfty dollars in benevolence and the other fifty in be- 
ginning to dig your own well. Or, if you have a thou- 
sand dollars a year, spend eight hundred dollars of it in 
living — ten per cent or one hundred dollars in benevo- 
lence and the remaining one hundred in beginning to 
dig 3^our own well. The largest bird that ever flew 
through the air was hatched out of one egg, and the 
greatest estate was brooded out of one dollar. 

I suppose when Jacob began to dig this well, on 
whose curb we are noAv seated this December noon, it 



260 



BERMOKS Olf THE HOLY LAND, 



was a dry season then as now, and someone comes up 
and says : Now, Jacob, suppose you get the well fifty 
feet deep or two hundred feet deep and there should be 
no water to fill it, would you not feel silly ? People 
passings along the road and looking down from Mount 
Gerizim or Mount Ebal near hy would laugh and say : 
^That is Jacob's well, a great hole in the rock, illus- 
trating the man's folly. ' " Jacob replied : ''^ There never 
has been a well in Palestine or anj^ other country that, 
once thorouglilj^ dug, was not sooner or later filled from 
the clouds, and this will be no exception." For months 
after Jacob had completed the well people went by and 
out of respect for the deluded old man put their hand 
over their mouth to hide a snicker, and the well re- 
mained as dry as the bottom of a kettle that had been 
hanging over the fire for three hours. But one day the 
sun was drawing water, and the wind got round to the 
east, and it began to drizzle, and then great drops 
splashed all over the well-curb, and the heavens opened 
their reservoir, and the rainy season poured its floods 
for six weeks, and there came maidens to the well with 
empty pails and carried them awaj^ full, and the camels 
thrust their mouths into the troughs and were satisfied, 
and the water was in the well three feet deep, and fifty 
feet'deep, and two hundred feet deep, and all the Bedou- 
ins of the neigborhood and all the passersby realized 
that Jacob was wise in having his own well. My hear- 
er, it is your part to dig your own well and it is God's 
part to fill it. You do your part and he will do his 
part. 

Much is said about good luck," but people who are 
industrious and self-denying almost always have good 
luck. You can afford to be laughed at because of your 
application and economy, for when you get youv well 
dug, and filled, it will be your turn to laugh. 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



261 



But look up from this famous well, and see two 
mountains and the plain between them on which was 
gathered the largest religious audience that ever as- 
sembled on earth, about five hundred thousand people. 
Mount Gerizim, about eigiit hundred feet high, on one 
side and on the other Mount Ebal, the former called 
the Mount of Blessing and the latter called the Mount 
of Cursing. At Joshua's command six tribes stood on 
Mount Gerizim and read the blessings for keeping the 
law, and six tribes stood on Mount Ebal reading the 
curses for breaking the law^ while the five hundred 
thousand people on the plain cried ' ^Amen ' ' with an em- 
phasis that must have made the earth tremble. I 
do not believe that," says someone, ''for those moun- 
tain tops are two miles apart, and how could a voice be 
heard from top to top My answer is that while the 
tops are two miles apart, the bases of the mountains 
are only half a mile apart, and the tribes stood on the 
sides of the mountains, and the air is so clear, and the 
acoustic qualities of this great natural amphitheater 
so perfect that voices can be distincth^ heard from 
mountain to mountain, as has been demonstrated by 
travelers fifty times in the last fift^" years. 

Can 3^ou imagine anything more thrilling and sub- 
lime and overwhelming than what transpired on those 
two mountain sides and in the plain between, when the 
responsive service went on, and thousands of voices on 
Mount Gerizim cried, Blessed shalt thou be in the cit^^, 
and blessed shalt thou be in the fields, blessed shall 
be thy basket and th}' store ! " and then from Mount 
Ebal thousands of voices responded, cr3ang, Cursed 
be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark ! Cursed 
be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way," 
and then there rolled up from all the spaces between 
the mountains that one word with which the devout 



262 SERMOKS ON THEl HOLY LAND. 



of earth close their praj^ers and the giorified of Heaven 
finish their doxologies : Amen ! Amen ! " — that 
scene only to he surpassed by the times which are 
coming", when the churches and the academies of 
music, and the auditoriums of earth, no long-er large 
enough to hold the worshipers of God, the parks, the 
mountain sides, the g-reat natural amphitheaters of the 
valleys, shall be filled with the outpouring populations 
of the earth, and mountain shall reply to mountain, 
as Mount Gerizim to Mount Ebal, and all the people 
between shall ascribe riches, and honor, and glory, and 
dominion, and victory to God the Lamb, and there 
shall arise an Amen like the booming of the heavens 
mingling with the thunder of the seas. 

On and on we ride until now we have come to Shi- 
loh, a dead city on a hill surrounded by rocks, sheep, 
goats, olive gardens and vineyards. Here good Eli fell 
backward and broke his neck, and lay dead at the news 
from his bad boys Phineas and Hophni ; and life is not 
worth living after one's children have turned out badlj^, 
and more fortunate was Eli, instantly expiring under 
such tidings, than those parents who, their children 
recreant and profligate, live on with broken hearts to 
see them going down with deeper and deeper plunge. 
There are fathers and mothers here to-day to whom 
death would be happy release because of their recreant 
sons. And if there be recreant sons here present, and 
and your parents be far away, why not bow your head 
in repentance, and at the close of this service go to the 
telegraph office and put it on the wing of the lightning 
that you have turned from your evil ways ? Before 
another twenty -four hours have passed take your feet 
ofl" the sad hearts at the old homestead. Home to thy 
God, O prodigal ! 

Many, many letter^ do I get in purport saying : My 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



203 



son is in j^oiir cities ; we have not heard from him for 
some time ; we fear something is wrong ; hunt him up 
and say a good word to him ; his mother is almost 
crazj^ about him ; he is a child of many prayers. But 
how can I hunt him up unless he be in this audience ? 
Where are you, my boj^? On the main floor, or on 
this platform, or in these boxes, or in these great gal- 
leries ? Where are you ? Lift your right hand. I have 
a message from home. Your father is anxious about 
you, your mother is praying for you. Your God is 
calling for you. Or will 3'ou wait until Eli falls back 
lifeless ; and the heart against which you lay in infancy 
ceases to beat ? What a storj^ to tell in eternity that 
you killed her ? My God I avert that catastrophe I 

But I turn from this Shiloh of Eli's sudden decease 
under bad news from his boys, and find close by what 
is called the "Meadow of the Feast.'' While this an- 
cient Ci^tsy w^as in the height of its prosperity, on this 
"Meadow of the Feast'' there was an annual balk 
where the maidens of the city, amid clapping cj'mbals 
and a blare of trumpets, danced in a glee upon which 
thousands of spectators gazed. But no dance since the 
world stood ever broke up in such a strange wa}^ as the 
one the Bible describes. One night while by the light 
of the lamps and torches these gayeties went on, two 
hundred Benjamites, who had been hidden behind the 
rocks and among the trees, dashed upon the scene. 
The3" came not to injure or destroA^, but wishing to set 
up households of their own, the women of their own 
land having been slain in battle, and by preconcerted 
arrangement each one of the two hundred Benjamites 
seized the one whom he chose for the queen of his 
home, and carried her away to large estate and beau- 
tiful residence, for these two hundred Benjamites had 
inherited the wealth of a nation. 



264 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



As to-day near Shiloh we look at the Meadow of 
the Feast/' where the maidens danced that nig^ht, and 
at the mountain g-orge up which the Benjamites carried 
their brides, we bethink ourselves of the better times 
in which we live, when such scenes are an impossibility, 
and amid orderly g-roups and with prayer and benedic- 
tion, and breath of orange blossoms and the roll* of the 
wedding- march, marriage is solemnized, and with oath 
recorded in Heaven, two immortals start arm in arm 
on a journey to last until death do them part. Upon 
every such marriage altar may there come the bless- 
ing of Him who setteth the solitary in families. " 
Side by side on the path of life ! Side by side in their 
graves ! Side by side in Heaven ! 

But we must this afternoon, our last da3^ before reach- 
ing Nazareth, pitch our tent on the most famous bat- 
tlefield of all time — the plain of Esdraelon. What must 
have been the feelmgs of the Prince of Peace as he 
crossed it on the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth! 
Not a flower blooms there but has in its veins the 
inherited blood of flowers that drank the blood of fallen 
armies. Hardly a foot of the ground that has not at 
some time been gullied with war-chariots or trampled 
with the hoofs of cavalry. It is a plain reaching from 
the Mediterranean to the Jordan. Upon it look down 
the mountains of Tabor and Gilboa and Carmel. 
Through it rages at certain seasons the river Kishon 
which swept down the armies of Sisera, the battle oc- 
curring in November, when there is almost always a 
shower of meteors, so that " the stars in their courses " 
were said to have fought against Sisera. Through 
this plain drove Jehu, and the iron chariots of the 
Canaanites, scythed at the hubs of the wheels, hewing 
down their awful swaths of death, thousands in a min- 
ute. The Syrian armies^ the Turkish cirmies^ the 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



265 



Egyptian armies ao^ain and again trampled it. There 
they career across it, David and Joshua and Godfrey 
and Richard Coeur de Lion and Baldwin and Saladin — 
a plain not only famous for the past, but famous be- 
cause the Bible says the great decisive battle of the 
world will be fought there — the battle of Armageddon. 

To me the plain was the more absorbing because of 
the desperate battles here and and in regions round in 
wiiich the Holy Cross, the very two pieces of wood 
on which Jesus was supposed to have been crucified, 
was carried as a standard at the head of the Christian 
host ; and that night closing my ejes in m^^ tent on the 
plain of Esdraelon — for there are some things we can 
see better with eyes shut than open — the scenes of that 
ancient war come before me. The twelfth century was 
closing and Saladin at the head of eight37' thousand 
mounted troops was crjang, Ho, for Jerusalem. ! Ho, 
for all Palestine ! and before them everything went 
down, but not vvithout unparalleled resistance. 

In one place one hundred and thirty Christians were 
surrounded by many thousands of furious Moham- 
medans. For one whole day the one hundred and 
thirty held out against these thousands. Tennyson's 

six hundred/' when someone had blundered, " were 
eclipsed b^^ these one hundred and thirty fighting for 
the Holy Cross. The^^ took hold the lances which had 
pierced them \Yith death wounds, and pulling them 
out of their own breasts and side hurled them back 
again at the enemy. On went the fight until all but 
one Christian had fallen, and he, mounted on the last 
horse, wielded his battle-ax right and left till his 
horse fell under the plunge of the javelins, and the 
rider, making the sign of the cross toward the sky, 
gave up his life on the point of a score of spears. But 
soon after the last battle came. History portrays it, 



266 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



poetry chants it, painting colors it, and all ages admire 
that last struggle to keep in possession the wooden 
cross on which Jesus was said to have expired. It was 
a battle in which mingled the fury of devils and the 
'grandeur of angels. Thousands of dead Christians on 
this side. Thousands of dead Mohammedans on the 
other side. The battle was hottest close around the 
wooden cross upheld by the Bishop of Ptolemais, him- 
self wounded and dying. And when the Bishop of 
Ptolemais dropped dead, the Bishop of L^^dda seized 
the cross and again lifted it, carrying it onward into a 
wilder and fiercer fight, and sword against javelin, and 
battle-ax upon helmet, and piercing spear against 
splintering shield. Horses and men tumbled into 
heterogeneous death. Now the wooden cross on which 
the armies of Christians had kept their eye begins to 
waver, begins to descend. It falls ! and the wailing of 
the Christian host at its disappearance drowns the 
huzzah of the victorious Moslems. But that standard 
of the cross only seemed to fall. It rides the sky 
to-day in triumph. Five hundred million souls, the 
mightiest army of the ages, are following it, and where 
that goes they will go, across the earth and up the 
mighty steps of the heavens. In the twelfth century 
it seemed to go down, but in the nineteenth century it 
is the mightiest symbol of glory and triumph, and 
means more than any other standard, whether inscribed 
with eagle, or lion, or bear, or star, or crescent. That 
which Saladin trampled on the plain of Esdraelon I lift 
to-day for your marshaling. The cross ! The cross ! 
The foot of it planted in the earth it saves, the top 
of it pointing to the heavens to which it will take you, 
and the outspread beam of it like outstretched arms 
of invitation to all nations. Kneel at its foot. Lift 
your eye to its Victim. Swear eternal allegiance to its 



INCIDENTS IN PALESTINE. 



267 



power. And as that mig-hty symbol of pain and tri- 
umph is kept before us^ we will realize how insignifi- 
cant are the little crosses we are called to bear, and 
will more cheerfulh^ carry them. 

Must Jesus bear the cross aione 

And all the world go free ' 
No, there's a cross for everyone, 

And there's a cross for me. 

As I fall asleep to-night on my pillow in the tent on 
the plain of Esdraelon reaching from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Jordan, the waters of the river Kishon 
soothing me as by a lullaby, I hear the gathering of 
the hosts for the last battle of all the earth. And by 
their representatives America is here, and Europe is 
here, and Asia is here, and Africa is here, and all 
Heaven is here, and all hell is here, and Apollyon on 
the black horse leads the armies of darkness, and 
Jesus on the white horse leads the armies of light, and 
I hear the roll of the drums and the clear call of the 
clarions, and the thunder of the cannonades. And 
then I hear the wild rush as of millions of troops 
in retreat, and then the shout of victory as 
from fourteen hundred million throats, and then a song 
as though all the armies of earth and Heaven were 
joining in it, clapping cymbals beating the time — 

The kingdoms of this world are become the king- 
doms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall 
reign for ever and ever." 



AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 



*^ He came to Nazareth, where he was brought up." — Luke iv.,16. 



What a splendid sleep I had last nig-htin a Catholic 
convent^ my first sleep within doors since leaving" 
Jerusalem, and all of us as kindly treated as though 
we had been the Pope and his college of cardinals 
passing that way. Last evening, the genial sisterhood 
of the convent ordered a hundred bright-eyed Arab 
children brought out to sing for me, and it was glori- 
ous ! This morning I come out on the steps of the con- 
vent and look upon the most beautiful village of all 
Palestine, its houses of w^hite limestone. Guess its 
name ! Nazareth, historical Nazareth, one of the 
trinity of places that all Christian travelers must see 
or feel that they have not seen Palestine, namely, 
Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth. Babyhood, boyhood, 
manhood of Him for whom I believe there are fifty 
million people who would now, if it were required, 
march out and die, whether under ax, or down in the 
floods, or straight through the fire ! 

Grand old village is Nazareth, even putting* aside its 
sacred associations. First of all, it is clean • and that . 
can be said of few of the Oriental villages. Its neigh- 
boring town of Nablous is the filthiest town I ever 
saw, although its chief industry is the manufacture of 
soap. They export all of it. Nazareth was perhaps 
unusually clean the morning I speak of, for, as we 
rode into the village the afternoon before, the showers 
which had put our mackintoshes to the test had poured 
floods throug-h all the alleys under command of the 



AMOXG THE HOLY HILLS. 



269 



clouds, those thorough street commissioners. Besides 
that, N'azareth has been the scene of battles passing 
it from Israelite to Mohammedan and from Mohammed- 
an to Christian, the most wonderful of the battles be- 
ing that in which twenty-five thousand Turks were 
beaten by twenty-one hundred French, ISTapoleon Bona- 
parte commanding, that greatest of Frenchmen walk- 
ing these ver}' streets through which Jesus walked for 
nearly thirty years, the morals of the two, the antip- 
odes, the snows of Russia and the plagues of Egypt 
appropriately following the one, the doxologies of earth 
^ and the hallelujahs of Heaven appropriately following 
the other. And then this town is so beautifully situ- 
ated in a great green bowl, the sides of the bowl the 
surrounding fifteen hills. The God of nature, who is 
the God of the Bible, evidently scooped out this valle^^ 
for privacy and separation from all the world during 
three most important decades, the thirty years of 
Christ's boyhood and youth, for of the thirty-three 
years of Christ's stay on earth. He spent thirty of them 
in this town in getting ready — a startling rebuke to 
those who have no patience with the long years of prep- 
aration necessary when they enter on am' special 
mission for the Church or the world. The trouble is 
with most young men that the}' want to launch their 
ship from the dry dock before it is ready, and hence so 
many sink in the first cyclone. Stay in the store as a 
subordinate until you are thoroughly equipped. Be a 
good employe in your trade until you are qualified to 
be an employer. Be content with Nazareth until you 
are ready for the buffetings of Jerusalem. You may 
get so gloriously equipped in the thirty years that you 
can do more in three years than most men can accom- 
plish in a prolonged lifetime. These little suggestions 
I am apt to put into my sermon, hoping to help people 



270 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



for this world, while I am chiefly anxious to have them 
prepare for the next world. 

All Christ's boyhood was spent in this village and 
its surrounding's. There is the very well called " The 
Fountain of the Virgin/' to which, b^^ his mother's 
side, he trotted along holding her hand. No doubt 
about it ; it is the only well in the village, and it has 
been the only well for three thousand j^ears. This 
morning we visit it, and the mothers have their chil- 
dren with them now as then. The work of drawing 
water in all ages in those coi^atries has been women's 
work. Scores of them are waiting for their turn at it, , 
three great and everlasting springs rolling out into 
that well their barrels, their hogsheads of water in 
floods gloriously abundant. Tiie well is surrounded 
olive groves and wide spaces in which people talk, and 
children, wearing charms on their heads as protection 
against the '^evil eye," are playing, and women with 
their strings of coin on either side of their face, and in 
skirts of blue, and scarlet, and white, and green, move 
on with water-jars on their heads, Mar^^, I suppose, 
almost always took Jesus the boy with her, for she 
had no one she could Jeave him with, being in humble 
circumstances and having no attendants. I do not be- 
lieve there was one of the surrounding fifteen hills that 
the boy Christ did not range from bottom to top, or 
one cavern in their sides he did not explore, nor one 
species of bird flying across the tops that he could not 
call by name, nor one of all the species of faunabrows- 
ing on those steeps that he had not recognized. 

You see it all through his sermons. If a man be- 
comes a public speaker, in his orations or discourses 
you discover his early whereabouts. What a boy 
sees between seven and seventeen always sticks to 
bim. When the Apostle Peter preaches, you see the 



Al^IOKG THE HOLY HILLS. 271 

fishing nets with Avhich he had from his earUest da^'s 
been famiUar. And when Amos delivers his prophecy 
you hear it in the bleating- of the herds which he had in 
boyhood attended. And in our Lord's sermons and 
conversations you see all the phases of village life, and 
the mountainous life surrounding it. They raised their 
own chickens in Xazareth, and in after time iie cries : 
" Oh, Jerusalem ! Jerusalem I how often would I have 
gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings I " He had seen his mother open the famil3' 
wardrobe at the close of summer and the moth millers 
flying out, having destroyed the garments, and in 
after years he says : Lay not up for yourselves treas- 
ures on earth, where moth doth corrupt." In child- 
hood he had seen a mile of flowers, white as the snow, 
or red as the flame, or blue as the sea, or green as the 
tree-tops, and no wonder in his manhood sermon he 
said, " Consider the lilies." While one day on a high 
point where now stands the tomb of jSeby Ismail, he 
had seen winging past him so near as almost to flurry 
his hair, the partridge and the hoopoe, and the thrush, 
and the osprey, and the crane, and the raven, and no 
wonder afterward in his manhood sermon he said, Be- 
hold the fowls of the air.'' In Nazareth and on the 
road to it there are a great many camels. I see them 
now in memory making their slow way up the zigzag 
road from the plain of Esdraelon to jSlazareth. Fa- 
miliar was Christ with their appearance, also with that 
small insect the gnat, which he had seen his mother 
strain out from a cup of water or pail of milk, and no 
w^onder he brings afterward the large quadruped and 
the small insect into his sermon, and, while seeing the 
Pharisees careful about small sins and reckless about 
large ones, cries out : Woe unto you, blind guides, 
which strain out a gnat and swallow a cam^el ! " 



272 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LANB. 



He had in bo^^hood seen the shepherds get their flocks 
mixed up, and to one not familiar with the habits of 
shepherds and their flocks, hopelessly mixed up. And 
a sheep-stealer appears on the scene and dishonestly 
demands some of those sheep, when he owns not one 
of them. Well," say the two honest shepherds, " we 
will soon settle this matter," and one shepherd goes 
out in one direction and the other shepherd goes out in 
the other direction, and the sheep-stealer in another 
direction, and each one calls, and the flocks of each of 
the honest shepherds rush to their owner, while the 
sheep-stealer calls, and calls again, but gets not one of 
the flock. No wonder that Christ years after, preach- 
ing on a great occasion and illustrating his own shep- 
herd qualities, says : When He putteth forth His own 
sheep He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, 
for they know His voice, and the stranger they will 
not follow, for they know not the voice of the stranger." 
The sides of these hills are terraced for, grapes. The 
boy Christ had often stood with great round eyes watch- 
ing the trimming of the grapevines. Clip, goes the 
knife, and off falls a branch. The child Christ says to 
the farmer, " What do you do that for ? " " Oh,^^ says 
the farmer, that is a dead branch and it is doing noth- 
ing and is only in the way, so I cut it off." Then the 
farmer with his sharp knife prunes from a living branch 
this and that tendril and the other tendril. ^^But," 
says the child Christ, " these twigs that you cut off 
now are not dead ; what do you do that for ? " " Oh," 
says the farmer, '^we prune off these that the main 
branch may have more of the sap and so be more fruit- 
ful." No wonder in after years Christ said in his ser- 
mon : I am the true vine and My Father is the hus- 
bandman : every branch in me that beareth not fruit 
he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit 



AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 



he purge th it, that it may bring- forth more fruit." 
Capital ! No one who had not been a country boy 
would have said that. 

Streaks of nature all through Christ's sermons and 
conversations ! When a pigeon descended upon 
Christ's head at his baptism in the Jordan it was not 
the first pigeon he had seen. And then he has such 
wide sweep of discourse as you may imagine from one 
who has stood on the hills that overlook Nazareth. As 
far as I understand, Christ visited the Mediterranean 
Sea only once, but any clear morning he could run up 
on a hill near Nazareth and look off to the west and 
see the Mediterranean, while there in the north is 
snowy Mount Lebanon, clad as in white robe of ascen- . 
sion, and 3^onder on the east and southeast Mount Gil- 
boa, Mount Tabor and Mount Gilead, and yonder in the 
south is the Plain of Esd raelon, over which we rode yes- 
terday on our way to Nazareth. Those mountains of 
His boyhood in His memory, do you wonder that Christ 
when he wanted a good pulpit, made it out of a moun- 
tain — seeing the multitudes, he went up into the 
mountain." And when he wanted especial commun- 
ion with God, he took James and John and Peter into 

a mountain apart." 

Oh, this countr}^ boy of Nazareth, come forth to 
atone for the sins of the world, and to correct the 
follies of the world, and to stamp out the cruelties of 
the world, and to illumine the darkness of the world, 
and to transfigure the hemispheres! So it has been the 
mission of the country boys in all ages to transform 
and inspire and rescue. They come into our merchan- 
dise and our court-rooms and our healing art and our 
studios and our theology. They lived in Nazareth 
before they entered Jerusalem. And but for that 
annual influx our cities would have enervated and 



274 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



sickened and slain the race. Late hours and hurtful 
apparel and overtaxed digestive org-ans and crowded 
environments of city life would have halted the world, 
but the valleys and mountains of Nazareth have given 
fresh supply of health and moral invigoration to Jeru- 
salem, and the country saves the town. From the hills 
of New Hampshire and the hills of Virginia and the 
hills of Georgia come into our national eloquence the 
Websters and the Clays and the Henry W. Gradys. 
From the plain homes of Massachusetts and Marjdand 
come into our national charities the George Peabodys 
and the William Corcorans. From the cabins of the 
lonely countr3^ regions come into our national destinies 
the Andrew Jacksons and Abraham Lincolns. From 
ploughboy's furrow and village counter and black- 
smith's forge come most of our city giants. Nearly all 
the Messiahs in all departments dwelt in Nazareth 
before they came to Jerusalem. I send this day thanks 
from these cities, mostly made prosperous by country 
boys, to the farmhouse and the prairies and the 
mountain cabins and the obscure homesteads of North 
and South and East and West, to the fathers and 
mothers in plain homespun if they be still alive or the 
hillocks under which they sleep the long sleep. Thanks 
from Jerusalem to Nazareth. 

But alas that the city should so often treat the 
country boys as of old the one from Nazareth was 
treated at Jerusalem ! Slain not by hammers and 
spikes, but by instruments just as cruel. On every 
street of every city the crucifixion goes on. Every year 
show^s its ten thousand of the slain. Oh, how we grmd 
them up I Under what wheels, in what mills and for 
what an awful grist ! Let the city take better care of 
these boys and young men arriving from the country. 
They are worth saving*. They are now only the pref- 



AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 



275 



ace of what they will be if, instead of sacrificing' 
you help them. Boys as grand as the one who with 
his elder brother climbed into a church tower, and not 
knowing their danger, went outside on some timbers, 
when one of those timbers broke and the boys fell and 
the older boy caught on a beam and the younger 
clutched the foot of the older ; the older could not climb 
up with the younger hanging* to his feet, so the 
3^ounger said : " John, I am going to let go ; you can 
climb out into safety, but you can't climb up with me 
holding fast ; I am going to let go ; kiss mother for me, 
and tell her not to feel badly ; good-bye ! " and he let 
go and was so hard dashed upon the ground he was not 
recognizable. Plenty of such brave hoys coming up 
from Nazareth ! Let Jerusalem be careful how it 
treats them ! A gentleman long ago entered a school 
in German^' and he bowed ver}' low before the bo3^s and 
the teacher said : " Why do you do that ? " " Oh," 
said the visitor, ''1 do not know what mighty man 
may yet be develof)ed among them.'' At that instant 
the eyes of one of the boys flashed fire. Who was it ? 
Martin Luther. A lad on his way to school passed a 
doorstep on which sat a lame and invalid child. The 
passing boy said to him: *^Why don't you go to 
school ? " " Oh, I am lame, and I can't walk to 
school ! " Get on my back,'' said the well bo^', ^' and 
I will carry you to school." And so he did that day 
and for many days until the invalid was fairly started 
on the road to an education. Who was the well boy 
that did that kindness ? I don't know. Who was the 
hivalid he carried ? It was Kobert Hall, the rapt 
pulpit orator of all Christendom. Better give to the 
boys who come up from Nazareth to Jerusalem a crown 
instead of a cross. 
On this December morning in Palestine, on our way 



276 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



out from Nazareth, we saw just such a carpenter's shop 
as Jesus worked in, supporting* his widowed mother, 
after he was old enough to do so. I looked in, and 
there were hammer, and saw, and plane, and auger, 
and vise, and measuring rule, and chisel, and drill, and 
adze, and wrench, and bit, and all the tools of carpen- 
try. Think of it! He who smoothed the surface of 
the earth shoving a plane. He who cleft the moun- 
tains by earthquake, pounding a chisel. He who 
opened the mammoth caves of the earth, turning an 
auger. He who wields the thunderbolt, striking with 
a hammer. He who scooped out the bed for the ocean, 
hollowing- a ladle. He who flashes the morning on the 
earth, and makes the midnight heavens quiver with 
aurora, constructing a window. I cannot understand 
it, but I believe it. A skeptic said to an old clergy- 
man, " I will not believe anything I cannot explain." 

Indeed !" said the clergyman. ^^You will not be- 
lieve anything 3"ou cannot explain ? Please to explain 
to me why some cows have horns, and others have no 
horns." " No ! " said the skeptic, " I do not mean ex- 
actly that. I mean that I will not believe anything I 
have not seen ! " " Indeed," said the clergyman, 
" you will not believe anything you have not seen ? 
Have you a backbone?" ^^Yes," said the skeptic. 
" How do you know ? " said the clerg3^man. Have 
you ever seen it ? ^' This mysterj^ of Godhead and 
humanity interjoined I cannot understand, and I can- 
not explain, but I believe it. I am glad there are so 
many things we cannot understand, for that leaves 
something for Heaven. If we knew everything here. 
Heaven would be a great indolence. What foolish 
people those who are in perpetual fret because they 
cannot understand all that God says and does. A child 
in the first juvenile primer might as well burst into 
tears because it cannot undestand conic sections. In 



AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 



277 



this world we are only in the ABC class, and we can- 
not now understand the libraries of eternitj^ which put 
to utmost test faculties archangelic. I would be ashamed 
of Heaven if we do not know more there, with all our 
faculties intensified a million-fold and at the center of 
the universe, than we do here with our dim faculties 
and clinging to the outside rim of the universe. 

In about two hours we pass through Oana, the vil- 
lage of Palestine where the mother of Christ and our 
Lord attended the wedding of a poor relative and 
having come over from Nazareth for that purpose. 
The mother of Christ — for women are first to notice 
such things — found that the provisions had fallen short 
and she told Christ, and he to relieve the embarrass- 
ment of the housekeeper, who had invited more guests 
than the pantry warranted, became butler of the occa- 
sion, and out of a cluster of a few sympathetic words 
squeezed a beverage of a hundred and twenty- six gal- 
lons of wine in which was not one drop of intoxicant, or 
it would have left that party as maudlin and drank as 
the great centennial banquet, in New York two years 
ago, left senators, and governors, and generals, 
and merchant princes. The difference between 
the wine at the wedding in Cana and the wine 
at the banquet in New York being that the Lord made 
one and the devil made the other. We got off our 
horses and examined some of these water jars at Cana, 
said to be the very ones that held the plain water that 
Christ turned into the purple bloom of an especial vin- 
tage- I measured them and found them eighteen 
inches from edge to edge and nineteen inches deep, and 
declined to accept their identity. But we realized the 
immensit^^ of a supply of a hundred and tw^enty-six 
gallons of wine. What was that for? Probably one 
gallon would have been enough, for it was onlj^ an ad- 
ditional instalment of what had already been provided. 



278 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



and it is probable that the housekeeper could not have 
guessed more than one g-allon out of the way. But a 
hundred and twenty-six gallons ! What will they do 
' with the surplus ? Ah, it was just like our Lord ! Those 
young people were about to start in housekeeping, and 
their means were limited, and that big supply, whether 
kept in their pantry or sold, will be a mighty help. 
You see there was no strychnine, or logwood, or nux 
vomica, in that beverage, and as the Lord made it it 
would keep. He makes mountains and seas that keep 
thousands of years, and certainly he could make a 
beverage that would keep four or five years. Among 
the arts and inventions of the future I hope there may 
be someone that can press the juices from the grape 
and so mingle them, and without one drop of damning 
alcoholism, that it will keep for years. And the more 
of it you take the clearer will be the brain and the 
healthier the stomach. And here is a remarkable fact 
in my recent journey — I traveled through Italy, 
Greece, and Egypt, and Palestine, and Sj^ria, and 
Turkey, and how many intoxicated people do you 
think I saw in all those five great realms ? Not one. 
We must in our Christianized lands have got hold of 
some kind of beverage that Christ did not make. 

Oh, I am glad that Jesus was present at that wed- 
ding, and last December, standing at Cana, that wed- 
ding came back. Night had fallen on the village and 
its surroundings. The bridegroom had put on his head 
a bright turban, and a garland of flowers, and his gar- 
ments had been made fragrant with frankincense and 
camphor, an odor which the Oriental especially likes. 
Accompanied by groomsmen, and preceded by a band 
of musicians with flutes and drums, and horns, and b^^ 
torches in full blaze, he starts for the bride's home. 
This river of fire is met by another river of fire, the 
torches of the bride and bridesmaids ; flambeau an- 



AMONG THE HOLY BILLS, 



279 



swering- flambeau. The bride is in white robe, and her 
veil not onl^' covers her face but envelopes her body. 
Her trousseau is as elaborate as the resources of her 
father's house permit. Her attendants are decked 
Avith all the ornaments they own or can borrow : but 
their own personal charms make tame the jewels, for 
those Oriental women eclipse in attractiveness all 
others except those of our own land. The damson 
rose is in their cheek, and the diamond in the luster of 
their eyes, and the blackness of the night in their long- 
locks, and in their step is the gracefulness of the morn- 
ing'. At the first sight of the torches of the bridegroom 
and his attendants coming over the hill, the cry rings 
through the home of the bride : They are in sight I 
Get ready I Behold the bridegroom comethi Go ye out 
to meet him.'' As the two j)rocessioiis approach each 
other, the timbrels strike and the songs commin- 
gle, and then the two processions become one, and 
march toward the bridegroom's house, and meet a 
third procession which is made up of the friends of 
both bride and bridegroom. Then all enter the house, 
and the dance begins, and the door is shut. And all 
this Christ uses to illustrate the joy with which the 
ransomed of earth shall meet him when he comes 
garlanded with clouds, and robed in the morning, and 
trumpeted by the thiuiders of the last day. Look I 
There comes down oti the hills of Heaven, the Bride- 
groom I And let us start to hail Him, for I hear the 
voices of the Judgment Da^^ sounding, ''Behold, the 
Bridegroom cometh I Go ye out to meet Him." And 
the disappointment of those who have declined the' 
invitation to the Gospel wedding is presented under 
the figure of a door heavily closed. You hear it slam. 
Too late. The door is shut I 

But we must hasten on, for I do not mean to close 
my eyes to-night till I see from a mountain top Lake 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



Galilee, on whose banks, next Sabbath, we will worship, 
and on whose waters the following" morning- we will 
take a sail. On and up we go in the severest climb of 
all Palestine, the ascent of the Mount of Beatitudes, on 
the top of which Christ preached that famous sermon 
on the Blesseds — Blessed this and Blessed that. Up 
to their knees the horses plunge in molehills, and a 
surface that gives way at the first touch of the hoof, 
and again and again the tired beasts halt, as much as 
to say to the rider, ^' It is unjust for you to make us 
climb these steeps. On and up over mountain sides, 
where in the later season hyacinths and daisies, and 
phloxes, and anemones kindle their beauty. On and 
up until on the rocks of black basalt we dismount, and 
climbing to the highest peak look out on an enchant- 
ment of scenery that seems to be the Beatitudes them- 
selves arched into skies, and rounded into valleys and 
silvered into waves. The view is like that of Tennessee 
and North Carolina from the top of Lookout Mountain, 
or like that of Vermont and New Hampshire from the 
top of Mount Washington. Hail, hills of Galilee ! 
Hail, Lake Gennesaret, only four miles away ! Yonder, 
clear up and most conspicuous, is Safed, the very city 
to which Christ pointed for illustration in the sermon 
preached here, saying, A cit^^ set on a hill cannot be 
hid." There are rocks around me on this Mount of 
Beatitudes, enohgh to build the highest pulpit the 
world ever saw. Ay, it is the highest pulpit. It over- 
looks all time and all eternity. The Y^Uey of Hattin 
between here and Lake Galilee is an amphitheater, as 
though the natural contour of the earth had invited 
all nations to come and sit down, and hear Christ 
preach a sermon in which there were more startling* 
novelties than were ever announced in all the sermons 
that were ever preached. To those who heard him on 



AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 



this very spot, his work must have seemed the con- 
tradiction of everything the^^ had ever heard or read 
or experienced. The world's theor3^ had been : Blessed 
are the arrogant ; Blessed are the supercilious ; Blessed 
are the tearless ; Blessed are tliey that have every- 
thing their own way : Blessed are the war eagles ; 
Blessed are the persecutors ; Blessed are the popular ; 
Blessed are the Herods, and the C^sars, and the 
Ahabs. ^*No ! no ! no ! " says Christ, with a voice 
that rings over these rocks, and through yonder valley 
of Hattin, and down to the opaline lake on one side and 
the sapphire Mediterranean on the other, and across 
Europe in one wa^^, and across Asia in the other way, 
and around the earth both Ava^^s, till the globe shall be 
girdled with the nine beatitudes : Blessed are the 
poor. Blessed are the mournful. Blessed are the meek. 
Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are the merciful. 
Blessed are the pure, Blessed are the peacemakers. 
Blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are the falsely re- 
viled. 

Do you see how the Holy Land and the Holy Book 
fit each other ? God with his left hand built Palestine, 
and with his right wrote the Scriptures, the two hands 
of the same Being. And in proportion as Palestine 
is brought under close inspection the Bible will be 
found more glorious and more true. Mightiest book of 
the past ! Mightiest book of the future ! Monarch of 
all literature ! 

The proudest works of Genius shall decay, 
And Reason's brightest luster fade away ; 
The sophist's art, the poet's boldest flight, 
Shall sink in darkness, and conclude in night ; 
But faith triumphant over time shall stand. 
Shall grasp the sacred volume in her hand ; 
Back to its source the heavenly gift convey, 
Then in the flood of glory melt away. 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 



He entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole 
multitude was by the sea on the land." — Mark iv., 1. 



It is Monday morning' in our Palestine experiences, 
and the sky is a blue Galilee above, as in the boat we 
sail the blue Galilee beneath. It is thirteen miles long* 
and six miles wide, but the atmosphere is so clear it 
seems as if I could cast a stone from beach to beacli. 
The lake looks as though it had been let down on silver 
pullej^s from the heavens and were a section of the sea 
of glass that St. John describes as a part of the celes- 
tial landscape. Lake Galilee is a depression of six 
hundred feet in which the river Jordan widens and 
tarries a little, for the river Jordan comes in at its 
north side and departs from its south side, so this lake 
has its cradle and its grave. Its white satin cradle is 
among the snows of Mount Hermon, where the Jordan 
starts, and its sepulcher is the Dead Sea, into which the 
Jordan empties. Lake Como of Italy, Lake Geneva of 
S\yitzerland, Lake Lomond of Scotland, Lake Winne- 
pesaukee of America, are larger, but Lake Galilee is 
the greatest diamond that ever dropped from finger of 
the clouds, and, whether encamped on its banks as we 
were yesterday and worshiping 'at its crystal altars, 
or wading into its waves which make an ordinary bath 
solemn as a baptism, or now putting out upon its 
sparkling surface in a boat, it is something to talk 
about, and pray about, and sing about, until the lips 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 



283 



with which we now describe it can neither talk, nor 
pray, nor sing\ 

As sometimes a beautiful child in a neighborhood 
has a half-dozen pet names, and some of the neighbors 
call her by one name, and others by another, so this 
pet lake of the planet has a profusion of names. Ask the 
Arab as he goes by, what this sheet of water is, and 
he will call it Tabariyeh. Ask Moses of the Old Testa- 
ment and he calls it Sea of Chinnereth. Ask Mat- 
thew, and he calls it Sea of Galilee. Ask Luke, and he 
calls it Sea of Gennesaret. Ask John, and he calls it 
Sea of Tiberias. Ask Josephus, and Eusebius, and they 
have other names ready. But to me it appears a child 
of the sky, a star of the hills, a rhapsody of the mount- 
ains, the baptismal bowl of the world's temple, the 
smile of the great God. Many kinds of fish are found 
in these waters, every kind of tree upon its bank, from 
those that grow in the torrid zone to those in the frigid, 
from the palm to the cedar. 

Of the two hundred and thirty war ships Josephus 
manoeuvered on th-ese waters — for Josephus was a war- 
rior as well as a historian — there remains not one 
piece of a hulk, or one patch of a canvas, or one 
splinter of an oar. But return to America we never 
will until we have had a sail upon this inland sea. 
Not from a wharf, but from a beach covered with 
black and white pebbles we go on board a boat of about 
ten or twelve tons, to be propelled partly by sail a^d 
partly by water. The mast leans so far forward that 
it seems about to fall : but we find it was purposely so 
built, and the rope through a pulley manages to hoist 
and let down the sail. It is a rougli boat, and as far 
as possible removed from a Venetian gondola or a 
sportsman's yacht. With a common saw and hammer 
and ax many of you could make a better one. Four 



284 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



barefooted Arabs, instead of sitting* down to their 
oars, stand as they always do in rowing*, and pull 
away from shore. I insist on helping, for there is 
nothing more exhilarating to me than rowing ; but I 
soon had enough of the clumsy oars, and the awk- 
ward attempt at wielding them while in a standing- 
posture. 

We put our overcoats and shawls on a small deck 
in the stern of the boat — the Yery kind of a deck 
where Christ lay on a fisherman's coat, when of old 
a tempest pounced upon the fishing smack of the 
affrighted disciples. Ospreys and wild geese and 
kingfishers fly overhead or dip their wings into the 
lake, mistaking it for a fragment of fallen sky. Can 
it be that those Bible stories about sudden storms on 
this lake are true ? Is it possible that a sea of such 
seeming placidity of temper could ever rise and rage 
at the heavens? It does not seem as if this happy 
family of elements could have ever had a falliijg- out 
and the water strike at the clouds and the clouds 
strike at the water. 

Pull away, oarsmen ! On our right bank are the 
hot sulphur baths, so hot they are scalding ; and the 
waters must cool off a long while before hand or foot 
can endure their temperature. Volcanoes have been 
boiling these waters for centuries. Four springs roll 
their resources into two great swimming reservoirs. 
Illfig Herod there tried to bathe off the results of his 
excesses, and Pliny and Josephus describe the spurt- 
ings out of these volcanic heats, and Joshua and Moses 
knew about them, and this moment long lines of pil- 
grims from all parts of the earth are waiting for their 
turn to step into the steaming restoratives. Let the 
boat, as far as possible and not run aground, hug the 
western shore of the lake, that we may see the city 



OtJR SAIL OX LAKE GALILEE. 



285 



Tiberias, once a great capital, of the architecture of 
which a few mosaics, and fallen pillars and pedestals, 
and here and there a broken and shattered frieze, 
remain, mightily suggestive of the time when Herod 
Antipas had a palace here and reigned with an opu- 
lence, and pomp, and cruelty , and abomination that par- 
alyzes the fingers of the Jiistorian when he comes to 
write it, and the fingers of the painter when he at- 
tempts to transfer it to canvas. I suppose he was one of 
the worst men that ever lived. And what a contrast 
of character comes at every moment to the thought- 
ful traveler in Palestine, whether he walks the beach 
of this lake or sails, as we now do, these waters ! 

Side by side are the two great characters of this 
lake i^egion : Jesus and Herod Antipas. And did any 
age produce any such antipodes, any such antitheses, 
any such opposites ? Kindness and Cruelty, Holiness 
and Fifth, Generosity and Meanness. Self-sacrifice and 
Selfishness, the Supernal and the Infernal, Midnoon 
and Midnight. The father of this Herod Antipas was 
a genius at assassination. He could manufacture more 
reasons for putting people out of this life than any 
man in all history. He sends for Hyreanus to come 
from Babylon to Jerusalem to be made high priest and 
slays liim. He has his brother-in-law while in bathing 
with him drowned by the king's attendants. He slays 
his wife and his wife's mother, and two of his sons and 
his uncle, and filled a volume of atrocities, the last cha^ 
ter of which was the massacre of all the babes at Beth- 
lehem. AVitli such a father as Herod the Great, you 
are not surprised that this Herod Antipas, whose 
palace stood on the banks of tliis lake we now sail, was 
a combination of wolf, reptile and hyena. While the 
Christ who walked yonder banks and sailed these waters 
was so good that almost every rood of this scenery 



286 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 

is associated with some wise word or sorae kindly 
deed, and all literature, and all art, and all earth, and 
all Heaven are put to the utmost effort in trying* to 
express how grand and glorious and lovely He was, and 
is, and is to be. The Christly and Herodic characters, 
as different as the two lakes we visit and not far apart, 
Galilee and the Dead Sea ; the one flower-hanked and 
the other bituminous and blasted ; the one hovered 
over by the mercy of Christ, the other blasted by the 
wrath of God ; the one full of finny tribes sporting in 
the clear depths, the other forever lifeless ; the waters 
of the one sweet and pleasant to the taste, the other 
bitter and sharp and disgusting. Awful Dead Sea ! 
Glorious Gennesaret. 

We will not attempt to cross to the eastern side of 
this lake, as I had thought to do, for those regions are 
inhabited by a thieving and murderous race, and one 
must go thoroughly armed ; and as I never shot any- 
one and have no ambition to be shot, I said : " Let us 
sta3^ by the western shore.'' But we look over to the 
hills of Gadara, on the other side, down which two 
thousand swine, after being possessed by the devil, ran 
into the lake, bringing down on the Christ for permit- 
ting it the wrath of all the stock-raisers of that countrj^ 
because of this ruining of the pork business. You see 
that Satan is a spirit of bad taste. Why did he not 
say : Let me go into those birds, whole flocks of which 
fly over Galilee " ? No; that would have been too high. 

Why not let me go into the sheep which wander over 
these hills?" No, that would have been too gentle. 

Rather let me go into these swine. I want to be with 
the denizens of the mire. I want to associate with the 
inhabitants of the filth. Great is mud ! I prefer bris- 
tles to wings. I would rather root than fly. I like 
snout better than wing." 



OUR SAIL OX LAKE GALILEE. 



287 



Infidelity scoffs at the idea that those swine should 
have run into the lake. But it was quite natural that 
under the heat and burning of that demoniac posses- 
sion the^' would start for the water to g'et cooled off. 
Would that all the swine thus possessed had plunged 
in the same drowning, for to this day the descendants 
of some of those porcine creatures retain the demons, 
and as the devils were cast out of man into them, they 
now afflict the human race with the devils of scrofula 
that comes from eating the unclean meat. The healthi- 
est people on earth are the Israelites because the}' 
follow the bill of fare which God in the book of Le- 
viticus gave to the human race, and our splendid French 
Doctor Pasteur, and our glorious German Doctor Koch, 
may go on with their good work of killing parasites in 
the human system ; but until the world corrects its diet, 
and goes back to the Divine regulation at the begin- 
ning, the human race will continue to be possessed of 
the devils of microbe and parasite. But I did not mean 
to cross over to the eastern side of Lake Galilee even 
in discussion. 

Pull away, ye Arab oarsmen I And we come along 
the shore nearbj^ which stand great precipices of brown 
and red and gray limestone crowned by basalt, in the 
sides of which are vast caverns, sometimes the hiding- 
place of bandits, and sometimes the home of honest 
shepherds, and sometimes the dwelling-place of 
pigeons, and vultures, and eagles. During one of 
Herod's wars his enemies hid in these mountain caverns 
and the sides were too steep for Herod's armj' to de- 
scend, and the attempt to climb in the face of armed 
men would have called down extermination. So Herod 
had great cages of wood, iron-bound, made, and filled 
them with soldiers and let them down from the top of 
the precipices, until they gave signal that they were 



288 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



level with the caverns, and then from these cages they 
stepped out to the mouth of the caverns and having set 
enough grass and wood on fire to fill the caverns with 
smoke and strangulation, the hidden people w^ould 
come forth to die ; and if not coming forth voluntarily, 
Herod's men would pull them out with long iron 
hooks, and Joseplius says that one father rather than 
submit to the attacking army, flung his wife and seven 
children down the precipice, and then leaped after them 
to his own death. 

Now, ye Arab oarsmen, row on with swifter stroke, 
for we want before noon to land at Capernaum, the 
three-years' home of Jesus. But before arrival there 
we are to have a new experience. The lake that had 
been a smooth surface begins to break up with rude- 
ness. The air which all the morning made our sail 
almost useless, suddenly takes hold of our boat with 
a grip astonishing, and our poor craft begins to roll 
and pitch and tumble, and in five minutes we pass 
from a calm to violence. The contour of this lake 
among the hills is an invitation to hurricanes. I 
used to wonder why it was that on so limited a sheet 
of water a bestormed boat in Christ's time did not put 
back to shore when a hurricane was coming. 1 w^onder 
no more. On that lake an atmospheric fury gives no 
warning, and the change we saw in five minutes made 
me feel that the boat in which Christ sailed may have 
been skillfully managed when the tempest struck it, 
and the wild importunate cry went up : ^^Lord save us 
or we perish ! " I had all along that morning been 
reading from the New Testament the story of occur- 
rences on and around that lake. But our Bible was 
closed now, and it w^as as much as we could do to 
hold fast, and wish for the land. If the winds and the 
W^ves had continued to increase in violence the follow- 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 



289 



ing" fifteen minutes in the same ratio as in the first 
five, and we had been still at their mercy, our bones 
would have been bleaching' at the bottom of Lake Gen- 
nesaret instead of our being here to tell the story. 
But the same Power that rescued the fishermen of old, 
to-day safely landed our party. What a Christ for 
roug'h weather I All the sailor boys ought to fly to 
him as did those Galilean mariners. All you in the 
forecastle, and all you who run up and down the slip- 
"pery ratlines, take to sea with 3'ou him who with a 
quiet word sent the winds back through the mountain 
gorges. Some of you jack tars to whom these words 
will come need to tack ship ' ' and change your course 
if you are going to get across this sea of life safely, 
and gain the heavenl^^ harbor. Belay there. Ready 
about I Helm's-a-lee I Mainsail haul I You have too 
valuable a cargo on board to run into the Goodwins or 
the Skerries. 

Star of peace I beam o'er the billlow 
Bless the soiil that sighs for thee ; 
Bless the sailor's loneh' pillow, 
Far, far at sea. 

Here at Capernaum, the Arabs having in their arms 
carried us ashore to the only place where our Lord 
ever had a pastorate, and we stepped amid the ruins 
of the church Avhere he preached again, and again, and 
again, the synagogue, whose rich sculpturing lay 
there, not as when others see it in spring-time covered 
with weeds, and loathsome with reptiles, but in that 
December weather completely uncovered to our agi- 
tated and intense gaze. On one stone of that sjma- 
gogue is sculpturing of a pot of manna, an artistic 
commemoration of the time when the Israelites were 
fed by manna in the wilderness, and to which sculptur- 
ing no doubt Christ pointed upward while he was 



290 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



preaching" that sermon on this very spot^ in which he 
said : " Not as your fathers did eat manna and are 
dead ; he that eateth of this bread shall live forever." 
Wonderful Capernaum ! Scene of more miracles than 
an3^ place in all the earth ! Blind eyes kindling- with 
the morning-. Withered arms made to pulsate. 
Lepers blooming into health. The dead g-irl reani- 
mated. 

These Arab tents which on this December day I find 
in Palestine, disappear, and I see Capernaum as it was 
when Jesus was pastor of the church here. Look at 
that wealthy home, the architecture, the marble front, 
the upholstery, the slaves in uniform at the doorway. 
It is the residence of a courtier of Herod, probabl3^ 
Chuza b}^ name, his wife Joanna, a Christian disciple. 
But something- is the matter. The slaves are in g-reat 
excitement, and the courtier living- there runs down 
the front steps and takes a horse and puts him at a 
full run across the country. The boy of that noble man 
is dying- of typhoid fever. AH the doctors have failed 
to give relief. But about five miles up the countr^^, at 
Cana, there is a Divine doctor, Jesus by name, and the 
agonized father has gone for him, and with what 
earnestness those can understand who have had a dy- 
ing child in the house. This courtier cries to Christ : 

Come down ere my child die ! 

While the father is absent, and at one o'clock in the 
afternoon, the people watching the dying boy see a 
change in the countenance, and Joanna, the mother, on 
one side of his couch, says : Why, this darling is get- 
ting well ; the fever has broken ; see the perspiration 
on his forehead ; did any of 3^ou give him any new kind 
of medicine ? No,'' is the answer. The boy turns 
on his pillow, his delirium gone, and asks for some- 
thing to eat, and says: ''Where's father?" Oh, he 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 



291 



has gone up to Cana to get a 3^oung doctor of about 
thirty-one years of age. But no doctor is needed now 
in this house at Capernaum. The people look at the 
sun-dial to find what time of day it is, and see it is just 
past noon, and one o'clock. Then they start out and 
meet the returning father, and as soon as they come 
within speaking distance the}' shout at the top of their 
voices : " Your boy is getting well/''' Is it possible ? " 
sa3'S the father. " When did the change for the better 
take place ? " One o'clock," is the answer. " Why," 
says the courtier, that is just the hour that Jesus 
said to me, • Thy son liveth.' One o'clock I " 

As they gather at the evening meal what gladness 
on all the countenances in that home at Capernaum ! 
The mother, Joanna, has not had sleep for many nights, 
and she now falls off into delightful slumber. The 
father, Chuza, the Herodian courtier, worn out with 
anxiety as well as by the rapid journey to and from 
Cana, is soon in restful unconsciousness. Joanna was 
a Christian before, but I warrant she was more of a 
Christian afterward. Did tl:ie father Chuza accept the 
Christ who had cured his boy ? Is there in all the 
earth a parent so ungrateful for the convalescence or 
restoration of an imperilled child as not to go into a 
room and kneel down and make surrender to the al- 
mighty love that came to the rescue. 

Do not mix up this case with the angry discussions 
about Christian science, but accept the doctrine, as old 
as the Bible, that God does answer prayer for the sick. 
That Capernaum boy was not the only illustration of 
the fact that praj^er is mightier than a typhoid fever. 
And there is not a doctor of large practice but has 
come into the sickroom of some hopeless case, and, in a 
cheerful manner, if he were a Christian, or with a be- 
wildered manner if he were a skeptic, said: ^^Well, 



29^ SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



what have you been doing- with this patient ? What 
have you been g-iving him ? The pulse is better. The 
crisis is past. After all, I think he will get well." 
Prayer will yet be acknowledged in the world's mate- 
ria medica, and the cry is just as appropriate now as 
when Chuza, the courtier from Capernaum, uttered in 
Christ's hearing- : " Come down ere my child die ! '* 
If the prayer be not answered in the way we wish, it 
is because God has something better for the child than 
earthly recovery, and there are thousands of men and 
women now alive in answer to fathers' and. mothers' 
prayers, myself one of the multitude. For I have 
heard my parents tell how when at three years of age 
scarlet fever seemed to have done its full work on me, 
and the physicians had said there was no more use of 
their coming-, and they had left a few simple directions 
to make the remaining hours peaceful, and according 
to the custom in those times in country places, the 
neighbors had already come in and made the shroud, 
the forlorn case Suddenly brightened, and the prayer, . 
" Come down ere my child die ! " was answered in a 
recovery that has not been followed by a moment's 
sickness from that time to this. 

The mightiest agency in the universe is prayer, and 
it turns even the Almighty. It decides the destinies 
of individuals, families and nations. During our sad 
civil war a gentleman was a guest at the White House 
in Washington, and he gives this incident. He says : 

I had been spending three weeks in the White House 
with Mr. Lincoln, as his guest. One night— it was just 
after the battle of Bull Run — I was restless and could 
not sleep. I was repeating the part which I was to 
take in a public performance. The hour was past mid- 
night. Indeed, it was coming near to dawn when I 
heard low tones proceeding from a private room where 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 293 



the President slept. The door was partly open. I 
instinct! vel3^ walked in and there I saw a sight which 
I shall never forget. It was the President kneeling 
before an open Bible. The light was turned low in 
the room. His back was turned toward me ; for a 
moment I was silent as I stood looking in amazement 
and wonder. Then he cried out in tones so pitiful and 
sorrowful : " Oh, thou God that heard Solomon in the 
night when he prayed for wisdom, hear me ! I cannot 
lead this people, I cannot guide the affairs of this na- 
tion without Thy help. I am poor and weak and sinful. 
Oh, God who didst hear Solomon when he cried for 
wisdom, hear me and save the nation ! ' " You see we 
don't need to go back to Bible times for evidence that 
prayer is heard and answered. 

But someone may say that Christ at Capernaum 
healed that courtier's child , yet he would not have done 
it for one in humble life. Why, in that very Caper- 
num, He did the same thing for a dying slave, belong- 
ing to the man who had made a present to the town of 
the church of which Jesus was pastor, the s3'nagogue 
among- whose ruins I to-day leap from fragment to 
fragment. This was the cure of a Roman soldier's 
slave, whose only acknow^ledged rights were the v/ishes 
of his owner. And none are now so enslaved or so^ 
humble or so sick or so sinful, but the all-sympathetic 
Christ is read}^ to help them, read}^ to cure them, 
ready to emancipate them. Hear it ! Pardon for all. 
Mercy for all. Help for alL Comfort for all. Heaven 
for all. Oh, this Lake Galilee ! What a refreshment 
for Christ it must have been after sjmipathizing with 
the sick, and raising the dead and preaching to the 
multitudes all day long to come down on these banks 
in the night-time arid feel the cool air of the sea on his 



294 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



hot face, and look up to the stars, the lighted lamps 
around the heavenly palaces from which he had de- 
scended. 

All Heaven and earth were still : from the high post 
Of stars to the hilled lake and mountain coast. 

All Heaven and earth were still, though not in sleep, 
But breathless as we grow when feeling most. 

But/' says someone, '^why was it that Christ, 
coming* to save the world, should spend so much of His 
time on and around so solitary a place as Lake Galilee ? 
There is only one city of any size on its beach, and both 
the western and eastern shores are a solitude, broken 
only by the sounds coming from the mud hovels of 
the degraded. Why did not Christ begin at Babylon 
the mighty, at Athens the learned, at Cairo the his- 
toric, at Thebes the hundred-gated, at Rome the 
triumphant ? If Christ was going to save the world, 
why not go where the world's people dwelt ? Would 
a man wishing to. revolutionize for good the American 
continent, pass his time amid the fishing-huts oti the 
shores of Newfoundland ? " My friends, Galilee w^as 
the hub of the wheel of civilization and art, and the 
center of a population that staggers realization. On 
the shore of the lake w^e sail to-day stood nine great 
cities, Scythopolis, Tarichse, Hippos, Gamala, Cho- 
razin, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Magdala, Tiberias— and 
many villages, the smallest of which had 15,000 in- 
habitants, according to Josephus, and reaching from 
the beach back into the country in all directions. 
Palaces, temples, coliseumiS, gymnasiums, amphi- 
theaters, towers, gardens terraced on the hillsides, 
fountains bewildering with sunhght', baths upon whose 
ixiosaic floors kmgs trod ; while this lake, from whera 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 



295 



the Jordan enters to where the Jordan leaves it^ was 
beautiful with all styles of shallop, or dreadful with all 
kinds of ivar galleon. Four thousand ships, history 
says, were at one time upon these waters. Battles 
were fought there which shocked all nations with their 
consequences. 

Upon those sea-fights looked Vespasian ar > Titus 
and Trajan, and whole empires. From one I these 
naval encounters so many of the dead floated to the 
beach they could not soon enough be entombed, and a 
plague Y\'as threatened. Twelve hundred soldiers 
escaping from ihese vessels of war were one day mas- 
sacred in the amphitheater at Tiberias. For three 
hundred years that almost continuous city encircling 
Lake Galilee was the metropolis of our planet. It was 
to the very heart of the world that Jesus came to 
soothe its sorrows, and pardon its sins, and heal its 
sick, and emancipate its enslaved, and reanimate its 
dead. 

And let the church and the world take the suggestion. 
While the solitary places are not to be neglected, we 
must strike for the great cities, if this world is ever to 
be taken for Christ. Evangelize all the earth except 
the cities, and in one year the cities would corrupt the 
earth. But brmg the cities and all the world Avill come. 
Bring London and England Avili come. Bring Paris 
and France will come. Bring Berlin and German}^ will 
come. Bring St. Petersburg and Eussia will come. 
Bring Vienna and Austria will come. Briug Cairo and 
Egypt will come. Bring the near three million people 
in this cluster of cities on tlie Atlantic coast, and all 
America will soon see the salvation of God. Z\Iiuisters 
of religion, let us intensify our evangelism I Editors 
and publishers, purify your printing presses I Asylums 



296 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



of mercy, enlarge your plans of endeavor I And 
instead of this absurd and belittling and wicked rivalry 
among our cities as to which happens to have the most 
men and women and children , not realizing that the 
more useless and bad people a city has the worse it is 
off, and-that a city which has ten thousand good people 
is more to be admired than a city with one hundred 
thousand bad people, let us take a moral census and 
see how many good men and women are leading forth 
how large a generation of good children who will con- 
secrate themselves and consecrate the round world to 
holiness and to God. O Thou blessed Christ who 
didst come to the mighty cities encircling Lake Gali- 
lee, come in mercy to all our great cities of to-day ! 
Thou who didst put thy hand on the white mane of 
the foaming billows of Gennesaret and make them lie 
down at thy feet, hush all the raging passions of the 
world ! O thou blessed Christ who, on the night when 
the disciples were tr^ang to cross this lake and '^the 
wind was contrary,'' after nine hours of rowing had 
made only three miles, didst come stepping on water 
that at the touch of thy foot hardened into crystal, 
meet all our shipping whether on placid or stormy 
seas, and say to all thy people now, by whatever stj^le 
of tempest tossed or driven, as thou didst to the 
drenched disciples in the cyclone : " Be of good cheer. 
It is I. Be not afraid ! '' 

Thank God that I have seen this lake of Christly 
memxories, and I can say with Robert McCheyne, the 
ascended minister of Scotland, who, seated on the banks 
of this lake, wrote in his last, sick days, and just before 
he crossed the Jordan — not the Jordan that empties 
into Galilee, but the Jordan that empties into the 

Sea of glass mingled with fire "—these sweet words 



OUR SAIL ON LAKE GALILEE. 



297 



at to be played by human fingers on Strang strings 
of earthly lute^ or by angelic fingers on seraphic 
harps : 

It is not that the wild gazelle 

Comes down to lap thy tide, 
But He that was pierced to save from hell 

Oft wandered by thy side. 
Graceful around thee the mountains meet, 

Thou calm, reposing sea ; 
But ah ! far more, the beautiful feet 

Of Jesus walived o'er thee. 
O Saviour ! gone to God's right hand, 

Yet the same Saviour still, 
Gra^ved on th}' heart is this lovely strand, 

And every fragrant hill. 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



** As he journeyed he came near Damascus." — Acts ix., 8. 



In Palestine we spent last night in a mud hovel of 
one story, but camels and sheep in the basement. Yet 
never did the most brilliant hotel on any continent 
seem so attractive to me as that structure. If we had 
been obliged to stay m tent, as we expected to do that 
nigiit, we must have perished. A violent storm had 
opened upon us its volleys of hail and snow, and rain, 
and wind, as "if to let us know what the Bible means 
when prophet, and evangelist, and Christ himself 
spoke of the fury of the elements. The atmospheric 
wrath broke upon us about one o'clock in the after- 
noon and we were until night exposed to it. With 
hands and feet benumbed, and our bodies chilled to the 
bone, we made our slow way. While high upon the 
rocks, and the gale blowing the hardest, a signal of 
distress halted the party, for down in the ravines one 
of the horses had fallen and his rider must not be left 
alone amid that wildness of scener}^ and horror of 
storm. As the night approached the tempest thick- 
ened, and blackened, and strengthened. Some of our 
attendants going ahead had gained permission for us- 
to halt for the night in the mud hovel I speak of. Our 
first duty on arrival was the resuscitation of the ex- 
hausted of our party. My room was without a win- 
dow, and an iron stove, without any top, in the center 
of the room, the smoke selecting my eyes in the^ absence 
of a chimney. Through an opening in the floor Arab 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



299 



faces were several times thrust up to see how I was 
progTessiug'. But the tempest ceased during* tlie nig'ht^ ^ 
and before it was fully day we were feeling^ for the 
stirrups of our saddled horses^ this being the day whose 
long- march will bring* us to that city wliose name can- 
not be pronounced in the hearing' of the intelligent or 
the Christian without making- the blood to tingle and 
the nerves to tiirill, and putting* the best emotions of 
the soul into agitation — Damascus ! 

During* the day w^e passed C^esarea Philippic the 
nothern terminus of Christ's journeyings. North of 
that he never went. We lunch at noon, seated on the 
fallen columns of one of Herod's palaces. 

At two o'clock in the afternoon, coming* to a hill-top, 
we saw on the broad plain a city, which the most' 
famous camel-driver of all time afterward called Mo- 
hammed, the prophet and the founder of the miost 
stupendous system of error that has ever cursed the 
earth, refused to enter because he said God would allow 
man to enter but one paradise, and he would not enter 
this earthh^ paradise lest he should be denied entrance 
to the heavenl3^ But no city that I ever saw so plays 
hide and seek with the traveler. The air is so clear 
the distant objects seem close by. You come on the 
top of a hill and Damascus seems only a little way olf . 
But down you g-o into a valley and you see nothing* for 
the next half hour but barrenness and rocks reg*urg*i- 
tated by the volcanoes of other ag*es. Up another hill 
and down again. Up again and down ag*ain. But 
after your patience is almost exhausted you reach the 
last hill- top, and the city of Damascus, the oldest cit}^ 
under the whole heavens and built by Noah's g*rand- 
son, g-rows upon your vision. Every mile of the 
journe^^ now becomes more solemn and suggestive and 
tremendous. 



300 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



This is the very road, for it has been the onl^^ road 
for thousands of years, the road from Jeruralein to 
Damascus, along' which a cavalcade of mounted officers 
went, about 1854 years ago, in the midst of them a 
fierce little man, who made up by magnitude of hatred 
for Christianity for his diminutive stature, andvv^asthe 
leading* spirit, and though sufferiug' from chronic in- 
flammation of the eyes, from those eyes flashed more 
indig-nation ag-ainst Christ's followers than any one of 
the horsed procession. This little man, before his 
name was changed to Paul, was called Saul. Soman}^ 
of the mightiest natures of all ages are condensed 
into smallness of stature. The Frenchman who was 
sometimes called by his troops Old One Hundred 
Thousand,'' w^as often, because of his abbreviated per- 
sonal presence, stjded Little Nap." Lord Nelson, 
with insignificant stature to start with, and one 
eye put out at Calvi, and his right arm taken off 
at Tenerifl'e, proves himself at Trafalgar the mightiest 
hero of the English nav}^. The greatest of American 
theologians, Archibald Alexander, could stand under 
the elbows of m^ny of his contemporaries. Look out 
for little men when they start out for some especial 
mission of good or evil. The thunderbolt is only a 
condensation of electricity. 

Well, that galloping group of horsemen on the 
road to Damascus were halted quicker than bombshell 
or cavalry charge ever halted a regiment. The Syrian 
noonday, because of the clarity of the atmosphere, is 
the brightest of all noondays, and the noonday sun in 
Syria is positively terrific for brilliance. But suddenly 
that noon there fiashed from the heavens a light which 
made that Syrian sun seem tame as a star in com- 
parison. It was the face of the slain and ascended 
Christ looking from the heavens^ and under the dash 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



301 



of that overpowering- lig*ht all the horses dropped with 
their riders. Human face and horses' mane tog^ether 
in the dust. And then two claps of thunder followed, 
uttering' the two words, the second word like the first: 
" Saul ! Saul ! '' For three days that fallen equestrian 
w^as totally blind^ for excessive lig-ht will sometimes . 
extinguish the eyesight. And what cornea and crys- 
talline lens could endure a brightness greater than the 
noonday S3"rian sun ? I had read it a hundred times, 
but it never so impressed me before and probably will 
never so impress me again, as I took my Bible from 
the saddle bags and read aloud to our comrades in 
travel: ^*As he journe^^ed he came near Damascus; 
and suddenly there shined round about him a lig'ht 
from Heaven : and he fell to the earth, and heard a 
voice saying* unto him, ' Saul! Saul! Why persecutest 
thou me? ' and he said, ' Who art Thou, Lord? ' And 
the Lord said, am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.' " 
But w^e cannot stop longer on this road, for we 
shall see this unhorsed equestrian later in Damascus, 
tow^ard wiiich his horse's head is turned, and at which 
we must ourselves arrive before night. The evening* 
is near at hand, and as we leave snowy Hermon behind 
us and approach the shadow of the cupolas of two 
hundred mosques, we cut through a circumference of 
many miles of g-arden w^hich embower the cit^^ So 
luxuriant are these gardens, so opulent in colors, so 
luscious of fruits, so glittering* with fountains, so rich 
with bowers and kiosks, that the Mohammedan's 
heaven was fashioned after what are to be seen here 
of bloom and fruitage. Here in Damascus, at the right 
season, are cherries, and mulberries, and apricots, and 
almonds, and pistachios, and pomegranates, and pears, 
and apples, and plums, and citrons, and all the 
richness of the round world's pomology. No wonder 



B03 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



that Julian called this city ''the Eye of the East," and 
that the poets of Syria have styled it '' the luster on 
the neck of doves/^ and historians said : '' It is the 
g'olden clasp which couples the two sides of the world 
together." 

Many travelers express disappointment with Damas- 
cus, but the trouble is they have carried on their minds 
from boyhood the book which dazzles so many young- 
people — the '' Arabian Nights,'^ and they come into 
Damascus looking* for Aladdin's lamp, and Aladdin's 
ring*, and the g*enii which appeared by rubbing* them. 
But, as I have never read the '^Arabian Nig*hts," such 
stuff not being* allowed around our house in my boyhood, 
and nothing* lig*hter in the way of reading* than Baxter's 
'^Saint's Everlasting* Rest," and D'Aubig*ne's '^History 
of the Reformation," Damascus appeared to me as sa- 
cred and secular history have presented it, and so the 
city was not a disappointment, but with few exceptions 
a surprise. 

Under my window to-night, in the hotel at Damascus, 
I hear the perpetual ripple and rush of the river Abana. 
Ah, the secret is out ! Now I know why all this flora 
and fruit, and wh^^ everything* is so green, and the 
plain one great emerald. The river Abana ! And not 
far off the river Pharpar, which our horses waded 
through to-day ! Thank the rivers, or rather the God 
who made the rivers ! Deserts to the north, deserts to 
the south, deserts to the east, deserts to the west, but 
here a paradise. And, as the rivers Gihon and Pison, 
and Hiddekel, and Euphrates made the other paradise, 
Abana and Pharpar make this Damascus a paradise. 
That is what made General Naaman of this city of 
Damascus so mad when he was told for the cure of his 
iepros3^ to go and wash in the river Jordan. The river 
Jordan is much of the year a muddy stream., and it is 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



303 



never SO clear as this river Abana that I hear rum- 
bling* under my window to-night, nor as the river 
Pharpar that we crossed to-day. They are as clear as 
though they had been sieved through some especial 
sieve of the mountains. General Naaman had great 
and patriotic pride in these two rivers of his own coun- 
try, and when Elisha the prophet told him that if he 
wanted to get rid of his leprosy he must go and Vv^ash 
in the Jordan, he felt as we who live on the magnifi- 
cent Hudson would feel if told that we must go and 
wash in the muddy Thames, or as if those who live on 
the transparent Rhine were told that the^^ must go 
and wash in the muddy Tiber. So General Naaman 
cried out with a voice as loud as ever he had used in 
commanding his troops, uttering those memorable 
words, which every minister of the Gospel sooner or 
later takes for his text : Are not Abana and Pharpar, 
' rivers of Damascus, better than the waters of Israel ? 
May I not wash in them and be clean ? " Thank God 
we live in a land with plenty of rivers, and that they 
bless all our Atlantic coast and all our Pacific coast, 
and reticulate all the continent between the coasts. 
Only those who have traveled in the deserts of Syria, 
or Egypt, or have in the Oriental cities heard the tink- 
ling of the bell of those who sell water, can realize 
what it is to have this divine beverage in abundance. 
Water rumbling over the rocks, turning the mill- 
wheel, saturating the roots of the corn, dripping from 
the buckets, filling tlie pitchers of the household, rolling 
through the fonts of baptisteries of holy ordinance, 
Oiling the reservoirs of cities, inviting the cattle- to 
come down and slake their thirst and the birds of Heav- 
en to dip their wing, ascending in robe of mist and 
falling again in benediction of shower— water, living 
water, God-given water ! 



304 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



We are awakened in the morning- in Dptmascus hy 
the song- of those who have dilferent styles of food to 
selL It is not a street cry as in London or New Yori^, 
hut a weird and long* drawn-out solo compared with 
which a huzz-saw is musicah It makes you inoppor- 
tunely waken, and will not let you sleep again. But 
to those who understand the exact meaning- of the 
song", it becomes quite tolerable, for they sing : God 
is the nourisher, buy my bread," God is the nour- 
isher, buy m}^ milk/' God is the nou richer, buy my 
fruit/' As you look out of the window you see the 
Mohammedans, who are in large majority in the city, 
at prayer. And if it were put to vote who should be 
king of all the earth, fifteen thousand in that city would 
say Christ, but one hundredandthirty thousand would 
sa}^ Mohammed. Looking from the window you see 
on the housetops and in the streets Mohammedans at 
worship. The muezzin, or the officers of the religion, 
who announce the time of worship, appear high up on 
the different minarets or tall towers, and walk around 
the minaret, inclosed by a railing, and cry in a sad and 
mumbling way : God is great. I bear witness tbat 
there is no God but God. I bear witness that Moham- 
med is the apostle of God. Come to pra^^ers ! Come 
to salvation ! God is great. There is no other but God. 
Praj^ers are better than sleep." Five times a day must 
the Mohammedan engage in worship. As he begins, 
he turns his face toward the city of Mecca, and unrolls 
upon the ground a rug which he almost always carries. 
With his thumbs touching the lobes of his ears, and - 
holding his face between his hands, he cries, God is 
great." Then folding his hands across his girdle, he 
looks down and saj^s : Holiness to thee, O God, and 
praise be to thee. Great is thy name. Great is thy 
greatness. There is no deity but thee." Then the 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



305 



worshiper sits upon his heels, then he touches his nose 
to the rug-, and then his forehead, these genuflections 
accompanied with tlie cry, Great is God." Then, 
raising' the forefinger of his -right hand toward Heaven, 
he says : I testify there is no deit}^ hut God, and I 
testify that Mohammed is the servant of God and the 
messenger of God." The^ prayers close' hj^ the wor- 
shiper holding' his hands opened upward as if to take 
the Divine blessing', and then his hands are rubbed over 
his face, as if to convey the blessing to his entire bod}^ 
There are tAvo or three commendable things about 
Mohammedanism. One is that its disciples wash be- 
fore ever}^ act of prayer, and that is five times a day, 
and there is a Gospel m cleanliness. Another com- 
mendable thing' is, they don't care who is looking', and 
nothing can stop them in their prayer. Another thing 
is that by the order of Mohammed, and an order obej'ed 
for thirteen hundred 3^ears, no Mohammedan touches 
strong drink. But the polygamy, the many-wifehood 
of Mohammedanism has made that religion the unut- 
terable^ and everhisting curse of woman, and when wo- 
man sinks, the race sinks. The proposition recentlj^ 
made in high ecclesiastical places for the reformation 
of Mohammedanism instead of its obliteration is like 
an attempt to improve a plague or educate a leprosy. 
There is onlj^ one thing that will ever reform Moham- 
medanism, and that is its extirpation from the face of 
the earth b}^ the power ofthe Gospel of the Son of God, 
which makes not only man but woman free for this life 
and free for the fife to come. 

The spirit of the horrible religion which pervades the 
city of Damascus, along whose streets we walk and out 
of whose bazar we make purchases and in Avhose 
mosques we study the wood carvings and bedizen- 
ments, was demonstrated as late as 1860, when in this 



306 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



city it put to death six thousand Christians in forty- 
eig-lit hours and put to the torch three thousand 
Christians' homes ; and tliose streets we walk to-da^^ 
were red with the carnag*e^ and the shrieks and g-roans 
of tlie dying- and dishonored men and women made 
this place a hell on earth. This went on until a 
Mohammedan, better than his religion, Abd-el-Kader 
by name, a great soldier who in one war had with 
twenty-five thousand troops beaten sixty thousand of 
the enemy, now protested against this massacre and 
gathered the Christians of Damascus into castles and 
private houses and filled his own home with the 
affrighted sufferers. After' a while the mob came 
to his door and demanded the Christian dogs " whom 
he was sheltering. And Abd-el-Kader mounted a 
horse and drew a sword, and, with a few of his old 
soldiers around him, charged on the mob and cried : 
Wretclies ! Is this the v/ay you honor the prophet ? 
May his curses be upon you ! Shame on you ! Shame ! 
You will yet live to repent. You think 3^ou ma^^ do as 
you please with the Christians, but the day of retri- 
bution will come. The Franks will yet turn your 
mosques into churches. Not a Christian will I give up. 
The3^ are my brothers. Stand back or I will give my 
men the order to fire." Then by the might of one 
great soul under God the wave of assasination rolled 
back. Huzzah for Abd-el-Kader ! Although now we 
Americans and foreigners pass through the streets of 
Damascus unhindered, there is in many parts of the 
city the subdued hissing of a hatred for Christianity 
that if it dared would put to death every man, woman 
and child in Damascus Avho does not declare allegiance 
to Mohammed. But I am glad to say that a wide, 
hard, splendid turnpike road has within a few years 
been constructed from Beyrout, on the shore of the 



OK TO DAMASCUS. 



sot 



Mediterranean, to tliis city of Damascus, and, if ever 
again that wholesale assassination is attempted, 
French troops and English troops would, with jingling 
bits and lightning hoofs, dash up the hills and down 
on this Damascus plain and leave the Mohammedan 
murderers dead on the floor of their mosques and 
seraglios. It is too late in the history of the world for 
governments to allow such things as the modern 
massacre at Damascus. For such murderous attacks 
on Christian missionaries and Christian disciples, the 
Gospel is not so appropriate as bullets or sabers sharp 
and heavy enough to cut through with one stroke from 
crown of head to saddle. 

But I must say that this city of Damascus, as I see 
it now, is not as absorbing as the Damascus of olden 
times. I turn my back upon the bazars, with rugs 
fascinating the merchants from Bagdad, and the Indian 
textile fabric of incomparable make, and the manu- 
factured saddles and bridles ga3^ enough for princes 
of the Orient to ride and pull, and baths where ablu- 
tion becomes inspiration, and the homes of those bar- 
gain-makers of to-day, marbled and divaned and 
fountained and upholstered and mosaiced and ara- 
besqued and colonnaded until nothing can be added, 
and the splendid remains of the great mosque of John, 
originally" built with gates so heavy that it required 
five men to turn them, and columns of porphyry and 
kneeling- places framed in diamond and seventy-four 
stained-glass windows and six hundred lamps of pure 
gold, a single xDray^er offered in this mosque said to 
be worth thirt}^ thousand prayers offered in 2inj other 
place. I turn my back on all these and see Damascus 
as it w^as when this narrow sti^eet, which the Bible 
calls Straight, was a great wide street, a New York 
Broadway or a Parisian Champs Elysees, a great 



308 SERMONS OK THE HOLY LAND. 



thoroug-hf are crossing- the city from gate to gate, 
along which tramped and rolled the pomp of all 
nations. There goes Abraham, the father of all the 
faithfuL He has in this city been purchasing a cele- 
brated slave. There goes Ben Hadad of Bible times, 
leading thirty-two conquered monarchs. There goes 
David, king, warrior, and sacred poet. There goes 
Tamerlane, the conqueror. There goes Haroun al 
Raschid, once the commander of an army of ninety- 
five thousand Persians and Arabs. There comes a 
warrior on his way to the barracks, carrying that kind 
of sword which the world has forgotten how to make, 
a Damascus blade with the interlacings of color chang- 
ing at ever}^ new turn of the light, many colors com- 
ing and going and interjoining, the blade so keen, it 
could cut in twain an object without making the lower 
part of the object tremble, with an elasticity that 
could not be broken, though you brought the point of 
the sword clear back to the hilt, and having a watered 
appearance which made the blade seem as though just 
dipped in a clear fountain, a triumph of cutlery which 
a thousand modern foundrymen and chemists have 
attempted in vain to imitate. On the side of this street, 
damasks, named after this city, figures of animals and 
fruits, and landscapes here being first wrought into 
silk — damasks. And specimens of damaskeening by 
which in this city steel and iron were first graved, and 
then the grooves filled with wire of gold — damaskeen- 
ing. But stand back or be run over, for here a.re 
at the gates of the city laden caravans from Aleppo 
in one direction, and from Jerusalem in another direc- 
tion, and caravans of all nations paying* toll to this 
supremacy. Great is Damascus ! 

But what most stirs my soul is neither chariot, nor 
caravan, nor bazar, nor palace, but a blind man pass- 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



309 



iiig along' the street, small of stature and insignificant 
in personal appearance. Oli, ves ; we have seen him 
before. He was one of that cavalcade coming* from 
Jerusalem to Damascus to kill Christians, and vre saw 
him and his horse tumble up there on the road some 
distance out of the city, and he got up blind. Yes, it 
is Saul of Tarsus now going along this street called 
Straight. He is led by his friends, for he cannot see 
his hand before his face, into the house of Judas : not 
Jiidas the bad, but Judas the good. In another part 
of this city one Ananias, not Ananias the liar, but An- 
anias the Christian, is told by the Lord to go to this 
house of Judas on Straight Street, and. put his hands 
on the blind eyes of Saul that his sight might return. 

Oh," said Ananias, I dare not go ; that Saul is a 
terrible fellow. He kills Christians, and he will kill 
me.^' Go,'' said the Lord, and Ananias went. There 
sits in blindness that tremendous persecutor. He was 
a great nature crushed. He had started for the city of 
Damascus for the one purpose of assassinating Christ's 
followers, but since that fall from his horse he has en- 
tirely changed. Ananias steps up to the sightless man, 
puts his right thumb on one eye, and the left thumb on 
the other eye, and in an outburst of sympathy and love 
and faith says : Brotlier Saul ! Brother Saul ! The 
Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as 
thou earnest, has sent me that thou mayest receive thy 
sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." Instantly 
something like scales fell from the blind man's eyes, 
and he arose fj'om that seat the mightiest evangel of 
all the ages, a Sir William Hamilton for metaphysical 
analysis, a John jlilton for sublimity of thought, a 
Whitfield for popular eloquence, a John Howard for 
wide-spread philanthi^opy. but more than all of them 
put together inspired, thunderbolted, midtipotent, 



310 



BEEMONS ON T^HE HOLY LAND. 



apostolic. Did Judas^ the kind liost of this blind man^ 
or Ananias the visitor, see scales drop from the sight- 
less eyes? I think not. But Paul knew they had 
fallen, and that is all that happens to any one of us 
when we are converted. The blinding scales drop from 
our e^^es, and we see things differently. 

A Christian woman, missionary among a most de- 
graded tribe whose religion was never to wash or im- 
prove personal appearance, was trying to persuade one 
of those heathen women not only of need of change of 
heart, but change of habits, which would result in 
change of appearance, but the effort failed until the 
missionary had placed in her own hallway a looking- 
glass, and when the barbaric woman, passing through 
the hall, saw herself in the mirror for the first time, 
she exclaimed, " Can it be possible I look like that? " 
and appalled at her own appearance she renounced her 
own religion and asked to be instructed in the Christian 
religion. And so we feel that we are all right in our 
sinful and unchanged condition, until the scales fall 
from our ej^es, and in the looking-glass of God's Word 
we see ourselves as we really are, until Divine grace 
transforms us. 

There are many people in this house to-da^^ as blind 
as Paul was before Ananias touched his eyes. And 
there are many here from whose eyes the scales have 
already fallen. You see all subjects and all things 
differentl3^ — God, and Christ, and eternity, and your 
own immortal spirit. Sometimes the scales do not all 
fall at once. When I was a bo^^ at Mount Pleasant, 
one Sunday afternoon, reading Doddridge's " Rise and 
Progress of Religion in the Soul," that afternoon some 
of the scales fell from my eyes and I saw a little. 
After I had been in the ministry about a year, one Sun- 
day afternoon in the village parsonage reading the 



ON TO DAMASCUS. 



311 



Bible story of the S\^ro-Phenician's faith, other scales 
fell from my eyes and I saw better. Two Sunday even- 
ings ag'o, Avhile preparing' for the evening service in 
New York, I picked up a book that I did not remember 
to have seen before, and after I had read a page about 
reconsecration to God I think the remaining scales fell 
from my eyes. Shall not our visits to Damascus to- 
da}^ result like Paul's visit, in vision to the blind, and 
increased vision for those who saw somewhat before ? 

I was reading of a painter's child who became biirid 
in infancy. But af er the cliild was near]\^ grown a 
surgeon removed the blindness. When told that this 
could be done, the cliild's chief thought, her mother 
being dead, was that she would be able to see her 
father, who had watched over her with great tender- 
ness. When night came she v^as in raptures, and ran 
her hands over her father's face, and shut her eyes as 
if to assure herself that this was really the father vrhom 
she had only known b}-- touch, and now looking upon 
him, noble man as he was in appearance as Avell as in 
reality, she cried out, Just to think that I had this 
father so many A^ears an.d never knew him I " As great 
and greater is the soul's joyful surprise when the scales 
fall from the eyes and the long spiritual darkness is 
ended, and vre look up into our Father's face, always 
radiant and loving, but now for the first revealed, 
and our blindness forever gone, we cr}^, ^'Abba, 
Father I 

To each one of this vast multitude of auditors I say, 
as Ananias did to Saul of Tarsus when his sympathetic 
fingers touched the closed e^^elids : ^'Brother Saul ! 
Brother gaul I the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto 
thee in the Avay that thou camest, hath sent me that 
thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the 
Holy Ghost !" 



ACROSS MOUNT LEBANON. 



The cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted." — Psahn 

civ., 16. 



In our Journey we change stirrup for wheel. It is 
four o'clock in the morning* at Damascus, Syria, and 
we are among the lanterns of the hostelry waiting* for 
the stage to start. A Mohammedan in high life is put- 
ting his three wives on board within an a.partment by 
themselves, and our party occup^^ the main apartment 
of one of the most uncomfortable vehicles in which 
mortals were ever jammed and half-strangulated. But 
we must not let the discomforts annul or disparage the 
opportunities. We are rolling on and out and up the 
mountains of Lebanon, their forehead under a crown 
of snow,v7hich coronet the fingers of the hottest summer 
cannot cast down. We are ascending heights around 
which is garlanded much of the finest poesy of the 
Scriptures, and are rising toward the mightiest do- 
minion that botany ever recognized, reigned over by 
the most imperial tree that ever swayed a leafy scepter 
— the Lebanon cedar ; a tree eulogized in m^^ text as 
having grown from a nut put into the ground b}^ God 
himself, and no human hand had anything to do with 
its planting : The cedars of Lebanon which He hath 
planted." 

The average height of this mountain* is seven 
thousand feet, but in one. place it lifts its head to an 



ACROSS MOUNT LEBAXOX. 



313 



altitude of teu thoii>:ii.d. Xo higher than six thousand 
feet can veg*etation exi-r. but beloAv that line, at the 
right season, are vineyards and oi'chards, aiid olive 
g:roves, and flowers that dasli the mountain side with 
a very carnag-e of color, and fill the air wiih aromatics 
that Hosea, the prophet, and Solomon, the king, cele- 
bral:ed as the smell of Lebanon." At a height of six 
thousand feet is a grove of cedars, the only de>cendants 
of those vast forests fi'om viiich Solomon cut his 
timber for the tempie at Jerusalem, and where at one 
time thei^e were one hundred thousand axmen hewing 
out the beams from which great cities were constructed. 
But t]ii-> nation of trce> has by human iconoclasm been 
massacred until only a small group is left. This race 
of giants is neaidy extinct, but I have no doubt that 
some of these wer^.^ liere when Hiram, king of Tyre, 
ordered the as-a--iriati(Ui of those cedar-s of Lebanon 
wiiich the Loixl planted. From the multitude of uses 
to which it may I'^e put and the employment of it in the 
Scriptures, the cedar is the Divine favorite. When the 
plains to be >een from the window of this s^age in 
wiiicli we ride to-day are parched under summer heats, 
and not a gra^s-bilade -urvives the fervidity, this tree 
stands in luxuriance, defyiag the summer sun. And 
when the storm- of winter teiaafy the earth, and hurl 
the rock-' in avalanche down this mountain side, this 
tree grapples tiie hurricane of snow in triumph, and 
leaves the -pent fury at it- feet. From sixty to eighty 
- feet high are they, the horizontal branches of great 
sweep with their burden of leaves needle-shaped, the 
top of the tree pyramidal, a throne of foliage on which 
might, and splendor, and glory sit. But so continu- 
ously has the extermination of trees gone on. tliat for 
the most part the mountains of Lebanon are bare of 



314 SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



foliage, while I am sorry to say the earth in all lands 
is being' likewise denuded. 

The ax is slaying the forests all round the earth. 
To stop the slaughter God opened the coal mines of 
England, and Scotland, and America, and the world, 
practically saying by that : " Here is fuel ; as far 
as possible let My trees alone.'' And by opening for 
the human race the great quarries of granite, and 
showing the human family how to make bricl^, God is 
practically saying : " Here is building material ; let My 
trees alone." We had better stop the axes among the 
Adirondacks. We had better stop the axes in all our 
forests, as it would have been better for Syria if the 
axes had long ago been stopped among the mountains 
of Lebanon. To punish us for our reckless assault on 
the forests, we have the disordered seasons ; now the 
drouths because the uplifted arras of the trees do not 
pray for rain, their presence, according to all scientists, 
disposing the descent of the showers ; and then we have 
the cyclones and the hurricanes multiplied in number 
and velocity because there is nothing to prevent their 
awful sweep. 

Plant the^ trees in your parks that the weary may 
rest under them. Plant them along your streets that 
up through the branches passersby may see the God 
who first made the trees and then made man to look at 
them. Plant them along the brooks, that under them 
children may play. Plant them in your gardens, that 
as in Eden the Lord may walk there in the cool of the 
day. Plant them in cemeteries, their shade like a 
mourner's veil, and their leaves sounding like the 
rustle of the wings of the departed. Let Arbor Day, or 
the day for the planting of trees, recognized by the 
legislatures of many of the States, be observed by all 



ACROSS MOUNT LEBANON. 



315 



our people, and the next one hundred years do as much 
m planting' these leafy glories of God as the last one 
hundred years have accomplished in their destruction. 
When, not long before his death, I saV on the banks 
of the Hudson, in his glazed cap. riding on horseback, 
George P. Morris, the great song writer of America, 
I found him grandly emotional, and I could understand 
how he wrote ^'Woodman, spare that tree!'' the 
verses of which many of us have felt like C[Uoting in 
belligerent spirit, when under the stroke of someone 
without sense or reason we saw a beautiful tree pros- 
trated : 

Woodman, spare that tree ! 

Touch not a single bough ! 
In youth it sheltered me, 

And I'h protect it now. 
'Twas my forefather's hand 

That placed it near his cot ; 
There, woodman, let it stand, 

Thy ax shall harm it not. 

My heart-strings round thee cling, 

Close as thy bark, old friend ! 
Here shall the wild bird sing, 

And still thy branches bend, 
Old tree 1 The storm still brave ! 

And woodman, leave the spot ; 
While I've a hand to save 

Thy ax shall harm it not. 

As we ride along on these mountains of Lebanon, 
we bethink how its cedars spread their branches, and 
breathe their aroma, and cast their shadows all through 
the Bible. Solomon discoursed about them in his bo- 
tanical v^'orks, when he spoke of trees ^'from the cedar 
tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop) that 



816 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



spring-eth out of the wall." The Psalmist says, The 
righteous shall grow like a cedar ih*Lebanon," and in 
one of his mag-ntficent doxologies calls on the cedars to 
praise the Lord. And Solomon says the countenance 
of Christ is excellent as the cedars, and Isaiah declares, 
The day of the Lord shall be upon all the cedars of 
Lebanon." And Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos and 
Zephaniah and Zechariah weave its foliage into their 
sublimest utterances. 

As we ride over Lebanon to-day there is a howling* 
wind sweeping* past and a dash of rain, all the better 
enabling- us to appreciate that description of a tempest, 
which no doubt was suggested by what David had seen 
with his own eyes among* these heights, for as a sol- 
dier he carried his wars clear up to Damascus, and 
such a poet as he, I warrant, spent many a day on Leb- 
anon. And perhaps while he was seated on this yqyj 
rock against which our carriage jolts, he writes that 
wonderful description of a thunderstorm : The voice 
of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full 
of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars 
of Lebanon. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of 
Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip like a calf, 
Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice 
of the Lord divideth the flames of fire." 

As the lion is the monarch of the fields, and behe- 
moth the monarch of the waters, the cedar is the mon- 
arch of the trees. And I think one reason why it is 
so glorified all up and down the Bible is because we 
need more of its characteristics in our religious life. 
We have too much of the willow, and ai*e easily bent 
this way or that ; too much of the aspen, and we trem- 
ble under every zephyr of assault ; too much of the 
bramble tree, and our sharp points sting and wound ; 



ACROSS MOUNT LEBANON. 



317 



but not enough of the cedar, wide-branched, and Heav- 
en-aspiiing^ and tempest-gTapphng*. But the reason 
these cedars stand so well is that the}^ are deep-rooted. 
The}^ run their anchors down into the caverns of 
the mountain and fasten to the very foundations of the 
earth, and twist around and cUnch themselves on the 
other side of the deepest layer of rock they can reach. 
And that is the difference between Christians who 
stand and Christians who fall. It is the diiference 
between a superficial character and one that has 
clutched its roots deep down around and under the 
Rock of Ages. 

One of the Lebanon cedars was examined by a scien- 
tist, and from its concentric circles it A\^as found to be 
thirt3^-five hundred years old and still standing, and 
there is such a thing' as everlasting- strength, and such 
a staunchness of Christian character that all time and 
all eternity", instead of being- its demolition, shall be its 
opportunity. Not such are those vacillating Chris- 
tians who are so pious on Sunday that they have no 
religion left for the week-day. As the anaconda gorges 
itself with food, and then seems for a long while to lie 
thoroughly insensible, so there are men who will on 
Sunday get such a religious surfeit that the rest oi the 
week the^^ seem thoroughh^ dead to all religious emo- 
tion. They w^eep in church under a charity sermon, but 
if on Monday a subject of want presents itself at the 
door, the beggar's safety will depend entirely on quick 
limbs and an unobstructed stairway. It takes all the 
grace they can get to keep them from committing 
assault and battery on those intruders who come with 
pale faces and stories of distress and subscription 
papers. The reason that God planted these cedars in 
the Bible was to suggest to us that we ought, in our 



318 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



religious character, to be deep like the cedar, high like 
the cedar, broad-branched as the cedar. A traveler 
measured the spread of the boughs of one of these trees 
and found it one hundred and eleven feet from branch 
tip to branch tip, and I have seen cedars of Christian 
character that through their prayers and charities put 
out one branch to the uttermost parts of America, 
and another branch to the uttermost parts of Asia, 
and these wide-branched Christians will keep on mul- 
tiplying until all the earth is overshadowed with 
mercy. 

But mark you, these cedars of Lebanon could not 
grow if planted in mild climates and soft air, and in 
carefully watered gardens. The3^ must have the gym- 
nasium of the midnight hurricane to develop their 
arms. They must play the athlete with a thousand 
winters before their feet are rightly planted, and their 
foreheads rightly lifted, and their arms rightly mus- 
cled. And if there be any other way for developiug 
strong Christian character except by storms of trouble, 
I never heard of it. Call the roll of martyrs, call the 
roll of the prophets, call the roll of the Apostles, and 
see which of them had an easy time of it. Which of 
these cedars grew in the warm valley ? Not one of 
them. Honeysuckles thrive best on the south side of 
the house, bat cedars in a Syrian whirlwind. Men and 
women who hear this or read this, instead of your 
grumbling because you have it hard, thank God that 
3^ou are in just the best school for making heroes and 
heroines. It is true both for this world and the next. 
Rock that baby in a cradle cushioned and canopied ; 
graduate him from that into a costly high chair and 
give him a gold spoon ; send him to school wrapped in 
furs enough for an arctic explorer ; send him through 



ACROSS MOUXT LEBAXON. 



319 



a college where he will not have to study in order to 
g-et a diploma, because his father is rich ; start him in 
a profession where he begins with an oihce, the floor 
covered with Axminster, and a library of books in 
Russian morocco, and an armchair upholstered like a 
throne, and an embroidered ottoman upon which to 
put his twelve-dollar gaiters, and then lay upon his 
table the best ivory cigar-holder you can import from 
Brussels, and have standing outside his door a pranc- 
ing span that won the prize at the horse fair, and 
leave him estate enough to make him independent of 
all strugg*le, and what will become of him ? If he do 
not die earl^' of inanition or dissipation, he will live a 
useless life, and die an unlamented death and go mto a 
foohs eternity. 

But what has i>een the history of most of the gTeat 
cedars in merchandise, in art, in law, in medicine, in 
statesmanship, in Christian usefulness ? '-John, get 
up and milk the cows ; it's late ; it^s half-past five in 
the morning. Split an armful of wood on your way 
out so that we can build the fires for breakfast. Put 
your bare feet on the cold oilcloth, and break the ice in 
your pitcher before you can wash. Yes ; it has been 
snowing* and drifting again last night, and we will have 
to break the roads." The boy's educational advan- 
tages, a long oak plank without any back to it, in 
country school-house, and stove throwing out more 
smoke than heat. Pressmg on from one hardship to 
another. After a while a position on salary or wages 
small enough to keep life, but keep it at its lowest ebb. 
Starting in occupation or business with prosperous 
men trying to fight 3'ou back at every step. But 
after a good while fairly on your feet, and your oppor- 
tunities widening, and then by some sudden turn you 



320 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



are triumphant. You are master of the situation, and 
defiant of all earth and hell. A Lebanon cedar ! John 
Milton, on his way up to the throne of the world's 
sacred poesy, must sell his copyright of Paradise 
Lost" for sevent^^-two dollars in three payments. And 
William Shakespeare, on his way up to be acknowl- 
edged the greatest dramatist of all ages, must hold 
horses at the door of the London theater for a sixpence, 
and Homer must struggle through total blindness to 
immortality, and John Bunyan must cheer himself on 
the way up by making a flute out of his prison stool, 
and Canova, the sculptor, must toil on through 
orphanage, modeling a lion in butter before he could 
cut his statues in marble. And the great Stephenson 
must watch cows in the field for a few pennies and then 
become a stoker, and afterward mend clocks before he 
puts the locomotive on its track and calls forth plaudits 
from parliaments, and medals from kings. Abel 
Stevens is picked up a neglected child of the street, 
and rises through his consecrated genius to be one 
of the most illustrious clergj^men and historians of the 
century. And Bishop Janes, of the same church, in bo}^- 
hood worked his passage from Ireland to America, and 
up to a usefulness where, in the bishopric, he was 
second to no one who ever adorned it. 

While in banishment Xenophon wrote his Anabasis 
and Thucydides his Historj^ of the Peloponnesian 
War," and Victor Hugo must be exiled for many years 
to the island of Guernsey before he can come to that 
height in the alfections of his countrymen that crowds 
Champs Elj^sees and the adjoining boulevards with 
one million mourners, as his hearse rolls down to the 
Church of the Madeleine. Oh, it is a tough old world, 
and it will keep you back and keep you down, and keep 



ACROSS MOUNT LEBANON. 



321 



you under as long- as it can. Hail, sons and daughters 
of the fire ! 

Stand, as the anvil when the stroke of stalwart men falls fierce 
and fast. 

Storms but more deeply root the oak whose brawny arms em- 
brace the blast. 

Stand like an anvil ; noise and heat are bom of earth and die 
with time : 

The soul, like God, its source and seat, is solemn, still, serene, 
sublime. 

Thirty years from now the foremost men in all occu- 
pations and professions will be those who are this hour 
in awful struggie of early life, many of them without 
five dollars to their name. So in spiritual life it takes 
a course of bereavements, persecutions, sicknesses and 
losses to develop stalwart Christian character. I got 
a letter a few days ag'o saying : I have hardly seen a 
well day since I was born, and I could not write my 
own name until I was fifty years of age, and I am very 
poor, but I am, by the grace of God, the happiest man 
in Chicago " The Bible speaks of the snows of Leba- 
non, and at this season of the year the snows there must 
be tremendous. The deepest snow ever seen in America 
would be insignificant compared with the mildest win- 
ter of snows on those Lebanon mountains. The cedars 
catch that skyful of cr^^stals on their brow and on 
their long arms. Piled up in great hefts are those 
snows, enough to crush other trees to the ground, split- 
ting the branches from the trunk and leaving them 
rent and torn never to rise. But what do the cedars 
care for these snows on Lebanon ? They look up to the 
winter skies and say : ^' Snow^ on ! Empty the white 
heavens upon us, and when this storm is passed, let 
other processions of tempests try to bury us in their 



S22 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



fury. We have for five hundred winters been accus- 
tomed to this, and for the next five hundred winters 
we will cheerfully take all you have to send, for that is 
the way we develop our strength, and that is the way 
we serve God and teach all ages how to endure and 
conquer." So I say : Good cheer to all people who are 
snowed under. Put your faith in God and you will 
come out gloriously. Others may be stunted growths, 
or weak junipers on the lower levels of spirituality^, but 
you are going to be Lebanon cedars. At last it will 
be said of such as you : These are they who came out 
of great tribulations and had their robes washed and 
made white in the blood of the Lamb." 

But while crossing over these mountains of Leba- 
non I bethink myself of what an exciting scene it 
must be wSen one of the cedars does fall. It does not 
go down like other trees, with a slight crackle that 
hardly makes the woodsman look up, or a hawk flut- 
ter from a neighboring bough. When a cedar falls it 
is the great event in the calendar of the mountains. 
The axmen fly ! The wild beasts slink to their dens. 
The partridges swoop to the valley for escape. The 
neighboring trees go down under the awful weight of 
the descending m.onarch. The rocks are moved out of 
their places, and the earth trembles as from miles 
around all ravines send back their sympathetic echoes ! 
Crash ! Crash ! Crash ! So when the great cedars 
of worldly or Christian influence fall, it is something 
terrific. Within the past few years how many mighty 
and overtopping men have gone down. There seems now 
to be an epidemic of moral disaster. The moral world, 
the religious world, the political world, the commer- 
cial world are quaking with the fall of Lebanon cedars. 
It is awful ! We are compelled to cry out with Zech- 



ACROSS MOUOT LEBANON. 



323 



ariah the prophet, Howl, fir trees, for the cedar is 
fallen ! Some of the smaller trees are giacl of it. 
When some g-reat dealer in stocks goes down the small 
dealers clap their hands and say, Good for him I " 
When a g-reat political leader goes down the small 
politicians clap their hands and say, Just as I ex- 
pected ! ^ When a great minister of religion falls, 
many little ministers laugh up their sleeves and think 
themselves somehow advantaged. Ah, beloved breth- 
ren, no one makes anything out of moral shipwreck ! 
Not a willow by the rivers of Damascus, not a s^^ca- 
more on the plains of Jericho, not an olive tree in all 
Palestine is helped by the fall of a Lebanon cedar. 
Better weep and pray and listen to Paul's advice to 
the Galatians, when he says, Consider thyself, lest 
thou also be tempted." 'No man is safe until he is 
dead, unless he be Divinely protected. A greater 
thinker than Lord Francis Bacon the world never 
saw, and he changed the workVs mode of thinking for 
all time, his Xovum Organum, a miracle of literature. 
With thirty-eight thousand dollars salary, and estates 
worth millions, and from the highest judicial bench of 
the world, he goes down under the power of briberj^ 
and confessed his crime, and was sentenced to the 
Tower and the scorn of centuries. Hovv'l, fir tree, for 
the cedar is fallen ! 

Warren Hastings, rising until he became Governor- 
General of India, and the envy of the chief public men 
of his day, plunges into cruelties against the barbaric 
people he had been sent to rule, until his name is chiefly 
associated with the criminal trial in Westminster Hall, 
where upon him came the anathemas of Sheridan, Fox, 
Edmund Burke, the English nation, and all time. 
Howl^ fir tree, for the cedar is fallen I As eminent 



324 



SERMONS ON THE HOLY LAND. 



instances of moral disaster are found in our own land 
and our own time, instances that I do not recite lest I 
wound the feeling's of those now alive to mourn the 
shipwreck. Let your indignation against the fallen turn 
to pity. A judge in one of our American courts gives 
this experience. In a respectable but poor family, a 
daughter was getting a musical education. She needed 
one more course of lessons to complete that education. 
The father's means were exhausted, and so great was 
his anxiety to help his daughter that he feloniously 
took some money from his employer, and going home 
to his daughter said, ^' There is the money to complete 
your musical education." The wife and mother sus- 
pected something wrong, and obtained from her hus- 
band the whole story, and that night went around with 
her husband to the merchant's house and surrendered 
the whole amount of the money and asked forgiveness. 
Forgiveness was denied, and the man was arrested. 
The judge, knowing all the circumstances and that 
the money had all been returned, suggested to the 
merchant he had better let the matter drop for the 
sake of the wife and daughter. No ! he would not let 
it drop, and he did all he could to make the case con- 
spicuous and blasting. The judge says that afterward 
the same inexorable merchant was before him for 
breaking the law of the land. It is a poor rule that 
will not work both ways. Let him that standeth take 
heed lest he fall. Not congratulation, but tears when a 
cedar is fallen ! 



THE END, 



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